Exes
by hbcooper
Summary: Rogue is unwittingly drawn into the schemes of a villain she thought long dead, and Gambit finds himself at an impasse: Can he rescue Rogue in time, or will his presence bring about her downfall? Romy.
1. Chapter 1

All characters owned by Marvel Comics

Author's notes: I wrote this to have a little fun with what is passing for canon right now. This story is set after Secret Wars and the eight month time gap, so spoilers if you haven't read the first few months of Duggan's Uncanny Avengers or Lemire's Extraordinary X-Men. I am sure some of the characters and things included here will be inaccurate by the time I have it all posted, but I've been itching to write something 'up-to-date', so here goes anyway!

This will reference a lot of the newer settings and plot points Marvel's batting around, including Magneto's team of X-villains, the rise of the Inhumans and the release of the Terrigen Mists, as well as the Jean Grey School's exile to Limbo, but I also threw in nods to an X-Men Evolution plot and some older 616 arcs. Rogue and Gambit as always are my main characters, but I pulled in a pretty big supporting cast to help them out. At heart though, it's a Romy story.

I'm also following the Marvel adage that dead doesn't necessarily mean dead, especially when we're talking about my villains. Unless somebody croaked on paper, I consider them fair game, as you'll see in the first chapter.

Just to get everybody on the same page as the story begins, Rogue is still with the Avengers' Unity Squad, now operating out of Schaefer Theatre in NYC, and she is afflicted with the Terrigen Mist derived M-Pox. Captain America is a senior citizen and her boss. Our Logan is dead, Teen Jean Grey is stranded in the future and attending college at Empire State University, and Storm, Forge, Iceman, and the Rasputins are hiding in Limbo.

This first chapter is a lot of set up. Our girl makes an appearance by the end, but no Remy until next week.

Hope you enjoy it!

* * *

 **Exes**

 **Chapter One**

A great heave of stone sent a cloud of dust and rubble raining to the floor below, the blanket of darkness pierced by a beam of artificial light that sliced through the ancient tomb's impenetrable depths. A man, but so much more than merely a man, jumped from the opening to the floor, five stories at a straight drop. He stood with barely a hair out of place from where it was tied into a long dark ponytail, and brushed the dirt from the shoulders of his crisp designer jacket. Across his back was slung a massive broadsword, the hilt of which glittered in the twinkling of the flashlight. From his pocket he pulled a handful of glow sticks and snapped one with each step, tossing them at various distances to illuminate the cavernous space.

At first glance it appeared to be a primitive structure, an ancient tomb forgotten to the ravages of nature and time, but a closer inspection revealed a masterpiece that defied architectural logic. The arches that curved from the ground level to the stories high ceiling used stones cleaved by the hands of slaves long since perished, and the open space of the chamber's floor was flanked with rows of colossal stone statuary carved in a highly sophisticated and stylized manner. Above, the snowstorms of the Himalayan Mountains raged, but you would never know it in the musty, eerie silence below. Dancing the beam of light over walls and doorways as he walked, he paused on a massive glyph engraved on the stone's surface.

" _Apocalypse_." Lips spread into a slow smile. "Tell me your secrets."

A faint noise reached his superhuman ears, the chink of metal against rock. Sword drawn, the man followed the noise through a twisting maze of chambers guarded by the silent statues. At the soft glow of burning torches ahead, he switched off his flashlight and soundlessly stepped forward.

A man that appeared to be made entirely of sandstone stood before a wall of fresh carvings. Moving as easily as if he were flesh and bone, the living sculpture poised his mallet above a chisel braced against the smooth plane, but waited before he struck, and spoke.

"It is impossible to sneak up on one who has seen your approach for hundreds of years." The creature's voice was the scrape of a rockslide. "Step from the shadows, and step towards your… _destiny_."

Destiny. That word, the name of a woman he knew too well, burned through his chest. He sheathed his blade and moved into the light. "Ozymandias, I believe? Scribe of the immortal En Sabah Nur, the first mutant, Apocalypse."

Ozymandias raised his hammer and struck the handle of the chisel. A flake of ancient stone skittered across the floor of the chamber. "Vargas. The self-proclaimed next step in the evolution of mankind?"

The man known as Vargas continued forward, head held high atop broad shoulders. "I presume, ancient one, if you know who I am, you also know what brings me here?"

An arm of rock gestured to the carved masterpiece before them. "Indeed. _Fear._ "

Growling, Vargas sneered arrogantly at the impossibility of nature speaking to him. "You assume too much, once and forever slave."

A head older than time turned slightly, amused. "Do I? It is fear that has driven your kind since they first climbed from the primordial seas. Fear of the final, great unknown. In this, you are no different."

"You _DARE_ …"

The ancient being drew his tools into his chest and pulled a burning torch from the wall. "Where you differ from your brethren, Vargas, is your search to answer that unknown. That search is what has led you…here."

He spread his arms and motioned behind them with the torch. The glow of the fire illuminated a space larger than a soccer stadium, and the surprising gleam of technology reflected the light, the sparkle of metal crawling from the stone floor towards the ceiling of the vast room. A machine. It was like nothing Vargas had ever seen, appearing to be alien in origin and leaps ahead of current expertise, it looked older than the rock surrounding it. The pair moved towards the immense structure.

A breathless Vargas caressed the glittering metallic surface with light fingers. "What is it?" he asked, though he already knew the answer.

Months of study and searching had drawn him to this place. There were whispers that echoed down the ages, mentions of Apocalypse's greatest secret: his regeneration chambers. The chambers were how the world's first mutant had lived for thousands of years, disappearing for long stretches of time to heal and lie in wait, and their locations were his best kept secret. A handful in Egypt, the ancient's birthplace if the rumors were to be believed, but murmurs of another, a mystery until now, nestled in the world's tallest mountains.

Ozymandias smiled. "It is immortality."

Gleefully, Vargas began studying the alien equipment while Ozymandias stood as still as that which he was made of. A sarcophagus, decorated equally with carved glyphs and circuit boards, was connected by conduits to another larger area, a holding pen, this divided into sections large enough to accommodate a dozen men lying in neat rows, and each section was wired to the next.

"Twelve…" Vargas murmured and reached into an inner pocket of his jacket. He drew a small and battered book from the depths and frantically flipped its pages. The book was the diary of a mad woman, Irene Adler, the mutant clairvoyant Destiny, and had given Vargas an invaluable glimpse into the past, present, and future. The monster Sinister had nearly taken it from him, but he had saved the book and its predictions, though the volume's rescue had nearly cost him his life. The encounter with the mutant geneticist had proven inspirational. Vargas was the pinnacle mankind had to offer, but he was still mortal and upon learning of Apocalypse and his riddles, had set his mind to rectify that shortcoming. "It was prophesized Apocalypse could be destroyed by twelve powerful mutants…but I thought that battle took place in Egypt?"

"So it was written, so it was done. The First One lured the mutants to his temple in Egypt, but the prophecy itself was a ruse. The Twelve were brought together not to destroy, but as the fuel that awakened En Sabah Nur from his healing slumber. Consider this chamber a…prototype…for the master's final machine. After all, practice makes perfect."

Vargas regarded the machinery appreciably from over the page of his book. "Clever."

"It would have been, had not one of the mutants proven unworthy. Magneto, the vaunted Master of Magnetism, failed. He and his powers were weak, and unraveled the tapestry of mutant energy."

Stroking his chin with his thumb and forefinger, Vargas paced the base of the technological monstrosity. It was clear time had taken its toll on the chamber, as the surface of the equipment was pitted and filthy, corroded in some places, but it looked repairable. Another inspiration struck from on high.

"Mutant energy was the fuel of your master's machine, but one mislaid miscreant brought down the house of cards. Tell me, is it the number of mutants that matters, or merely the power they wield?"

"One or one hundred, it matters not. What was important to activate the chamber was the accumulated energies of the beings inside it."

"Interesting. So, if one could _gather_ all of that power…there would be no need to bring all twelve of those miserable mutants here, no risk of the rotten apple spoiling the bunch."

"Gather?" The ancient scribe furrowed rock eyebrows beneath a stony turban. "I would like to know what bucket would collect such rain water."

The grin that split the handsome yet cold face of the Spanish super-human would have chilled any mortal to the bone. Memories of a sword fight flickered to his mind's eye, memories of a woman with a soul that matched her fiery spirit, of green eyes and a trail of white hair that blazed amongst a field of auburn, but most importantly to Vargas, were the memories of a score that sorely needed settling.

"I believe, ancient one, I know of just such a bucket."

* * *

He could be anywhere on Earth in the blink of an eye, but somehow he had always found himself in the worst places one could imagine.

The mutant called Vanisher was a teleporter, but since his talents had manifested themselves in his late teens, he had been drawn into the greed and corruption of the criminal underworld with a comfortable ease. Robbery, prostitution, drug trafficking, he had a hand in all of them over the years and had come through relatively unscathed. In truth, his luck had only changed for the worse when he had attempted to walk on the side of the angels, using his talents to help the X-Men, then later X-Force. That particular mutant hit squad had tortured and abused him and left him for dead, but Teleford Porter, the alias alone a testament to the scrawny man's sense of humor, had survived better than a Twinkie after a nuke bomb.

There was a slight limp to his steps as he pushed through the crowded streets of Bangkok, but that was to be expected. He had been shot six times. Six times! It was a miracle that he had lived, and pain like that made a man rethink his life and remember what was important, what mattered the most. _Priorities._ He stepped from the sidewalk through the doors of his favorite strip club, and took a table closest to the poles. His face, a striped mess of horizontal black tattoos, gleefully followed every bounce of a naked breast across the stage.

Three songs in, the hulking form of a man sat down, too close, at the next table. Vanisher, unwilling to avert his eyes from the blonde dancer in mid-backbend, hissed out of the side of his mouth. "Hey, buddy, it's a big place. How 'bout a little personal space?"

A large hand roughly grabbed his wrist and snapped a black metallic band around it in the same motion. Vanisher shoved his stool back, but couldn't break the iron grip or remove the bracelet. A failed attempt to teleport away clenched his bowels.

"What the _fuck_?"

The man next to him turned his face towards the mutant. "Hello, Teleford."

Vanisher's eyes widened, and his prominent Adam's apple bobbed with a panicked swallow. "Heeeeyyyy, Vargas. Long time, no see."

Vargas released his grip on Vanisher and scooted his chair closer. "Perhaps not long enough, Teleford?" The teleporter tried his power again and the device wrapping his wrist flashed red. The larger man tapped the band with a finger. "Power dampener. I wouldn't want you to leave before you hear what I have to offer. I have need of your services."

Teleford tried to control his breathing and his first, best instinct, to bolt for the door, but running wouldn't do him any good. Without his powers, Vargas would snap his neck like a toothpick. "Sorry, man, those X-Force fucks dissolved my organization. Besides, no more mutants, no more MGH." Vanisher had run a successful cartel out of South America that had specialized in marketing Mutant Growth Hormone to a select clientele. Wolverine and his black-ops X-Force squad had ripped his livelihood apart, but the Terrigen Mists that now roamed the planet and crippled mutantkind had put the final nail in the coffin. The look on Vargas's face made Vanisher's palms sweaty and he backpedaled. "I mean, if _you_ need a fix, I've got a decent stash squirreled away…"

The answering smile was hardly reassuring. "That talent is not what I was referring to, though if you indeed have access to that power restoring wonder drug, you may have solved a problem that has been plaguing me. No, I refer instead to your own mutant talent. I wish to hire the Vanisher for a very special job."

"You can't afford me." Every crook worth the name knew who Vargas was, and knew not to cross him. The man scared the hell out of Vanisher, and there was no way he wanted to get any closer if he could help it. Teleford's recent brush with death had painted a very yellow streak down his belly.

Leaning back casually, the dark-haired man inclined his head. "You haven't heard what I'm offering."

"And what's that?"

"Immortality. A chance to live forever."

Vanisher rolled his eyes. "What, are you a vampire now?"

The answering laugh was a rich, deep baritone. "Amusing. Tell me, Senor Porter, what do you know of the mutant named…Apocalypse?"

More than he had ever wanted, truth be told, but, intrigued, Vanisher leaned forward. "I'm listening."

* * *

He walked on tiptoes past the steel reinforced door. Silent, stealthy, he even managed to avoid the creak in the aging, slatted floor. Pulling his ring of keys from his pocket centimeter by painstaking centimeter, he inserted one in the lock, cringing at the turn of the tumblers, so loud it surely set off the woman's alarm bells. Pushing open the door sent his heart skipping joyously. He was clear! He had made it! He was so ecstatic that he dropped the keys, and watched in horror as they skittered across the scuffed wooden surface. He stooped hastily to retrieve them when his landlady's door burst open.

" _Vincent_!" From his knees he closed his eyes and groaned inwardly. "Rent's due on the 1st, Vincent!"

His eyes trailed up her house slippers, her pleated mom jeans and puffer vest layered beneath sternly crossed arms, and winced at the sharp eyes that bore scathingly into his from beneath hair reminiscent of a cockatoo's crest. When she spoke, the inflated curls bobbed with every word.

"Yes, Mrs. Dripps."

She moved her hands to her hips and loomed over him. "And what is today's date?"

Sighing, he pushed up on one knee and stood. "Today is the 30th, Mrs. Dripps. You'll have your rent tomorrow, I promise."

"Really?" She glared at him with so much venom that it made his stomach hurt. "Really? Because I'm pretty sure that's what you said last month, and the month before that. I'm sick of your excuses, _mutant_. You're lucky I let you live here in the first place! If that money's not in my hands tomorrow, you're done!" She gave one more shake of her feathers, one more look like he was a dog turd on her shoe, then slammed the door in his face.

Vincent exhaled with his head down and shuffled into his pitiful apartment. The light turning on sent roaches scattering under threadbare furniture and empty takeout containers. The apartment was basically one room with a kitchenette and attached bathroom, but the witch next door charged a fortune. A fortune he could barely afford. The wallet he tossed on the kitchen counter was as empty as his bank account and, apparently, the refrigerator. He slammed the door and leaned heavily on the counter with his head hung between his arms. Seventy hours a week at two dead-end jobs and he couldn't even scrape out lower class. No wonder his girlfriend had left him. She had been right, he was nothing but a loser.

It hadn't always been like this, though sometimes it had been worse. The man once called Mesmero had it all and lost just as much more times than he could count. Losing her had hurt like hell, but losing his girl hadn't been near as hard as losing his mutant powers. His hypnotic gift disappearing in a flash had torn a piece out of his soul. And the shit of it was, he still looked like a mutant! His green skin hadn't vanished along with the powers. He got all the discrimination, none of the perks. What he wouldn't give to have those powers again. He would have that bitch Dripps eating out of his hand with just one look. Hell, he'd make her do cartwheels!

He started rummaging through cupboards in search of food, and found a dented can of green beans when he heard a soft pop behind him. Turning to the noise, he jumped at the sight of two men suddenly standing in the middle of his apartment. Vincent threw himself back against the kitchen sink and dropped the can. It rolled along the floor towards his visitors, coming to rest at the feet of the tall, broad man with his dark hair slicked back into a ponytail.

"Who are you people?" Vincent stuttered. "How did you get in here?"

The muscular beast of a man bent and picked up the can, inspecting it closely, his lip curling into a snobbish sneer. "The how is not so difficult when you understand whom…"

The other man, bony and bald, his face striped with thick black tattoos, waggled his fingers. "How's it hangin', Vince?"

" _Vanisher_?" The supervillain underworld wasn't that big of a place. Mesmero hadn't pulled many jobs with the Vanisher, but a lifetime ago, there had been enough.

"In the flesh. This tall drink of water is Vargas."

Vincent ran a green skinned hand through matching hair and tried to control the panic in his voice. "Pleased to meet you. What can I do for you gentlemen?"

Vanisher leaned over the kitchen counter and smiled. "Got a job for you, Vince." The man he had called Vargas set down the can of green beans with a look of mild disgust.

"I lost my powers, Porter. Don't know what else I was ever good for."

Teleford just kept grinning. "Lost your powers? I got just the fix." He dug into a pocket and slapped three vials labelled MGH onto the counter. Vincent's eyes bulged from his head and he reached out a hand, but Vargas snatched his wrist in a painfully firm grip.

"What would you do, _mutant_ , to regain your powers?"

His throat suddenly dry, Vincent licked his lips and raised his eyes to meet the powerful man before him.

"Anything."

* * *

A cold finger of wind slipped down the side of her neck and she shivered, burrowing herself deeper into the broken in leather of Logan's old jacket. There was still the faint smell of his cigars, even after so much time had passed, and she sighed at the fresh wave of grief the memory brought to the surface.

Central Park was as deserted as it ever got on a biting winter day, and Anna Raven, the mutant known as Rogue, was thankful she encountered fewer and fewer bodies the longer she walked the twisted maze of sidewalks. The fewer people, the less chance of being recognized, a recent hazard of her job.

At the behest of Steve Rogers, the original Captain America and her boss, she had become the very public face of a new squad of Avengers. Rogue had been a superhero most of her adult life, usually in the company of her mutant family the X-Men, but that team had been decidedly more clandestine in its operations. Smiling pretty for the cameras as the Avengers' token mutant had taken some getting used to.

Exhaling crossly, she tugged her beanie down to make sure the unique white stripe that tangled its way through her auburn curls was contained. She would still be with the X-Men if those bastard Inhumans and their Terrigen Mist poison hadn't fractured the team and sent them scrambling who knew where. The roving cloud of mist that granted abilities to the Inhumans, another sect of the super-powered, killed those with the mutant gene, or worse, and what was left of mutantkind had been forced to make some tough choices just to survive.

Her arm ached and chafed beneath the fabric of her flannel shirt and leather jacket. The mist played havoc with her own cocktail of mutant genes that were now confused and infused with a hefty shot of ions courtesy of her former teammate Wonderman, Simon Williams. For her, any contact with the mists flared up a rash of blisters that the alarmist human public affectionately referred to as M-Pox. So far, the rash could only be soothed by a dose of experimental medication. Anna could have turned tail and ran, too, no one would have blamed her, but it wasn't in her to go belly up and quit. She was stubborn, a fighter born and bred, and Logan had trusted these Avengers, trusted Rogers and what he could do. Her best chance at making a difference lay with Earth's mightiest heroes, but her heart ached every day when she thought of her friends, her family, of Remy…Remy LeBeau, the mutant thief Gambit and the love of her life, though currently her estranged love. She knew he hadn't gone into hiding with Storm and the rest, but she didn't know exactly where he was. It had been months since they had spoken. Was he all right?

A soft popping noise snapped her from the rhythmic fall of her own footsteps.

"Fancy meeting you here…"

Skidding to a stop, she turned to the voice and started in surprise. " _Vanisher_?"

The gangly mutant was seated on the back of a nearby park bench, his long legs perched on the seat. A red and white striped stocking hat covered his normally shaved head, and his face was tattooed in thick, horizontal blocks. Teleford Porter, who had last been seen helping out Logan's squad of X-Force. Logan sure as hell hadn't trusted the man any further than he could throw him, and Vanisher's sudden presence raised the hackles on her neck, but thanks to Simon she was superstrong, invulnerable, and could fly away before he could even bat an eye or use his teleportation powers. Despite her unease, it was nice after all these months to see a fellow mutant, so she stepped forward.

"Good to see you're still breathin'. Nobody knew what happened to you, you just…"

"Disappeared?" A grin fragmented the tattooed face. "Hey, it's what I do, right?" The cold air swirled snowflakes between them.

Rogue could probably count the number of times she had spoken to Vanisher on one hand, and the pair of mutants regarded each other awkwardly. "What brings you to the Big Apple, sugar? Touring the mist cloud?"

The man's eyes were bright white against a grid of black. "Something like that. So, look at you! Avengers, huh? Big time celebrity shit. D'you think my friend could get an autograph?"

"Friend?"

There was the crunch of snow behind her. She whipped and her green eyes found a man with skin to match. Mesmero! The thought drowned in molasses as fast as it formed. A hypnotist, the most powerful that had ever lived, and she was caught like a fly in his web, unable to move her body, though inside she fought and snarled as hard as she could.

Vanisher stood on the seat of the park bench and hopped to the ground. He strode towards them and waved a hand in front of Rogue's vacant eyes. "Is she…?"

Mesmero crossed his armed and scowled at Vanisher. "Under my control, as long as your stuff is as good as you say." His smile rivaled the winter temp. "She can hear what you say, but there's nothing she can do about it."

Laying a heavy hand on Mesmero's shoulder, Vanisher gingerly touched Rogue with the other. "Sorry, Rogue, but every tourist loves a good souvenir."

The trio disappeared in a flash.


	2. Chapter 2

All characters owned by Marvel Comics

 **Chapter Two**

The cobblestone streets were stuffed with Sunday best, the air alive with the rattling blast of a brass marching band. The Second Line, a New Orleans tradition to honor those who had fallen, marched proudly forward, laughing in the face of the heavy grief each bereaved carried inside. Mourners danced to the heartbeat of the city that had survived it all and lived to tell the tale, waving their white handkerchiefs skyward in a flag of surrender.

In the swaying crowd, Remy LeBeau, the hometown boy known as Gambit, recognized friends, natives of the city he had loved but left behind long ago. His adopted father, the former leader of the Thieves' Guild, Jean-Luc LeBeau, paraded in a seersucker suit, his moustache neatly trimmed and head held high. When he couldn't catch his father's attention, Remy moved further along the sidewalks, searching the crowd for other familiar faces. He spotted Tante Mattie, the woman who had raised him, dabbing her broad cheeks with her hanky. He tried to call out to Tante, her big brown eyes a puddle of tears, but no one seemed to be able to hear him over the music.

Racing ahead, he tried to look for an opening in the throng of people when he spied another welcome friend. Ororo Munroe, the X-Man Storm, was a regal contrast to the city's more eclectic residents, but her silver hair stood out as readily as the white handkerchiefs flapping in the wind. Remy started in surprise. What would Stormy be doin' in the Big Easy? And not two steps behind her, Remy's ex-wife and childhood sweetheart Bella Donna Boudreaux, cooling herself with a fan of black lace. Belle didn't even look his direction, just kept her nose in the air like she always had. He didn't like this. Whose funeral could have brought them all together?

He cut down an alley and pushed through tourists, hoping to catch the front of the procession, but his heart nearly stopped when he did. Rogue, Anna Marie Raven, the absolute love of his life, as beautiful today as the first time he ever saw her, marched proudly behind the band, tears streaming from those emerald pools she called eyes.

"Anna!" he shouted. "Chere!" Remy tried to push his way through again, but was blocked by a writhing mass of sweaty t-shirt clad tourists. "Rogue!" She still hadn't heard him, though he had screamed at the top of his lungs, but the man walking next to her _had_ heard him, and turned his dark features to Remy. The face that spread in a sickly smile bottomed out Remy's stomach. It was a face he had seen reflected in the mirror over and over, despite his desperate efforts to erase it. Skin as black as obsidian, hair as white as snow, but still Remy's own red eyes, still Remy's own features. Death, the monster Apocalypse had turned Remy LeBeau into when the ancient mutant villain had twisted him so far around he hadn't known friend from foe.

"NO!" Remy shouted, but Death merely winked at him and snaked one arm around Rogue's waist, pulling her close enough to lay his pitch black lips against her creamy skin. Remy watched in mute horror as the darkness spread over her, changing her….

 _"ANNA!"_

Screaming, Remy sat bolt upright, shaking himself awake in a puddle of sweat. His heart thudded a heavy jazz beat in his chest and he swallowed the bile that crept up the back of his throat.

"Mon dieu…" he hung his head and ran a hand through his disheveled hair.

The nightmares were getting worse, had been for the last few days, and they all followed the same sickening theme. It had been so long, long enough he thought he had them under control, but he had been fooling himself. He would never escape what Apocalypse had done to him no matter how hard he tried.

He threw the tangled sheet off his naked body and loped for the kitchen in search of alcohol. There was still a little wine left in the bottle on the counter and he took a pull from it that burned pleasantly into the pit of his stomach. The street lights streaming through the cracks between the curtains gathered in patterns at his feet, and he stepped towards the latticed window overlooking Decatur Street. The French Quarter was his home, where he ran to when things got too complicated, and a cloud of poison gas sending his mutant family into hiding was about as complicated as it got. He hadn't heard from Stormy or the others, but hadn't been able to bring himself to join them, and truthfully wasn't ready yet to leave all this behind, and it hadn't been necessary yet, the Terrigen Mist didn't seem to bother him. Besides, Rogue was still out in the world. Anna, strong and stubborn as ever. He had been keeping his distance. They hadn't spoken in weeks, but he hoped she knew he was just a phone call away if she needed him.

Even at three in the morning the streets below bustled with tourists, and Remy shuddered at the nightmarish images the crowd conjured. He found his phone and flipped open his contacts, his thumb hovering over Rogue's picture. He clenched his jaw. She was fine. She was a grown woman and had made it clear they were just friends. All calling her was gonna get him was a fight or an invitation to join the Avengers again, and he didn't need either damn one…Still, it'd be nice to hear her voice…to know she was okay…

He nearly dropped the phone when it started vibrating in his hands. The picture that flashed onscreen wasn't Anna's, but another that was beautifully welcome. "Lorna?" Remy answered and began pawing around for his boxer shorts. For some reason, the idea of talking to his former X-Factor squad leader Lorna Dane, Polaris, while he was naked, seemed weird. She had punched him in the face for kissing her once, he hated to think what a nude conversation would get him.

"Remy…I…I'm sorry to call so late, but I hoped you'd be up…I mean, I knew you'd be up, right? You're _you_ …" She was babbling, her voice breathless like she had been sprinting up several flights of stairs. As far as Remy knew, she hadn't gone into hiding with everyone else, and, like him, hadn't experienced any of the ill effects that some mutants had suffered from exposure to the Inhumans' Terrigen Mist. They both appeared to have some sort of immunity.

"Chere," he interrupted her rambling. "What is it? You sound upset, is something wrong?"

"Yeah, I mean no, I mean…I'm so tired. I just can't sleep Remy, like, _at all_ …"

The phone vibrated again in his hand, and the number was one he didn't recognize, but it had a New York City area code. "Damn, Lorna, chere, I got another call. I'm sorry, can I call you back?"

"Yeah, sure," she mumbled. "Hey, it's pretty late. Why don't we just talk tomorrow?"

"Merci, chere. Tomorrow, then. Try to get some sleep." He warily switched lines. "Allo?"

"Remy LeBeau?"

Remy didn't recognize the voice, at least he didn't think he did. There was something familiar about it, forceful, no nonsense…

"Oui?"

"Son, this is Steve Rogers. We have a bit of a situation here."

Remy's knees buckled and he had to drop onto the bed behind him. Steve Rogers, Captain America, Rogue's boss and new father figure if Pietro's gossip was worth anything. Remy still hadn't forgiven the Captain for smashing him in the face with his world famous shield during a heated battle between their respective teams. That fucking thing was stronger than Logan's claws, Remy was lucky it hadn't broken his nose. But, a three a.m. phone call from your superhero exes' boss? Panic gripped his guts and he was glad he had put on his boxers.

"What kind of situation? Is Anna okay?"

"She's disappeared."

The blood rang angry through Remy's ears. Logan had sworn to him that these people would take care of her…he never should have let her stay there after Wolverine died… "Disappeared? What does that mean?"

"Take it easy, son. I understand you care for her very much. We all do." Remy fought the urge to scream profanities into the phone. "She had gone on her own into the city two days ago and didn't come back. We can't trace her cell phone or her communicator. We tracked her to her last known location, but after that, it's like she…vanished. I've had people looking for her, but with the current crisis, my team is spread too thin at the moment, and we've come up with nothing."

"Two days ago!?" Remy was coming unglued. "And you're just calling me now!?"

"She's more than capable of handling herself. It's not unusual for her to take a few hours R & R, but she usually checks in. We were hoping you had heard from her, or that you or your people had another means of contacting her."

Standing abruptly, he grabbed a duffel bag and started shoving clothes into it. "My people…" Remy intoned sarcastically.

"Now, son, I didn't mean it like that."

"Sure you didn't. Don' worry, Captain, me and _my people_ will find that girl. Count on it."

* * *

She woke shivering, lying on a cold stone floor. Curling into the fetal position, Rogue tried to stop the uncontrollable shaking that rattled her teeth up to her eyeballs. Logan's coat and her hat were gone, so were her shoes. When she finally opened her eyes, she immediately wished she hadn't. The sweeping space that surrounded her was eerily lit by burning torches that cast long, nightmarish shadows onto the rough-hewn stones, forming what looked like an ancient tomb, the flickering light playing on the carved features of immense stone statues that receded into the darkness.

Wincing, she forced herself to slowly stand. It felt like she had been hit by a Mack truck, and she nearly topped back to the floor, but with wobbly steps, she finally made it to the wall closest to one of the torches. Steadying herself, she discovered symbols carved into large swaths of the stone walls. Straining her eyes upward she couldn't quite make out the ceiling, the walls seemed to go on forever into the inky blackness that loomed above her.

Wonderman's inherited powers were still new to Rogue, but in the short time since Simon Williams had gifted her his ionic abilities, she had taken to them like she had been born with them. However, when she attempted to get airborne to explore the mysterious space further, she fell onto the ancient surface with a smack that echoed off the walls around her, her powers conspicuously absent.

"I'm afraid you won't be leaving quite so easily." The voice came from everywhere at once, a familiar voice she had thought long gone, and the sound of it brought forth the faint taste of vomit. _Vargas._ The man stepped from the shadows and sneered at her. "Your surprising new powers weren't quite the solution I had hoped for, but I did find a way to control them, and you." He pointed to his own wrist, then gestured to hers. Instead of her watch under the cuff of her flannel shirt, she discovered a black wristband that chomped into her skin. Red lights pulsed in a trailing sequence around the band like some deranged Fitbit. "Amazing what you can find on the internet these days. Power dampeners. Such wonderful little inventions."

Infusing as much steel as she could muster, Rogue levelled her eyes at him. "What have you done to me?"

The man she had almost killed long ago merely laughed. "Not enough to settle the debt between us, woman, not yet anyway." He walked towards her and she fought the urge to back away from him, instead holding her ground like Logan, the Wolverine, had always taught her. This man had bested the X-Man Psylocke, one of the deadliest hand-to-hand fighters Rogue had ever known. Without her powers, she was no match for Vargas, but she was scrappy, there was always a small chance she could get lucky. "It was my intention to already be rid of you, but your vile powers have changed greatly since last we met."

She allowed a small smile to twitch at the corner of her mouth. Understatement of the year. When she had last fought Vargas, her own mutant gift, the ability to absorb and borrow for a short time the thoughts, memories, and powers of anyone she touched skin to skin, had been more out of control than usual, and she had been able to spontaneously manifest the powers of anyone she had ever touched, sometimes all at once. For a brief, shining, terrifying moment, she had been one of the most powerful beings on the planet, and also the most dangerous. Thankfully that hadn't been the case for quite some time, but in an unrelated incident she had permanently taken Wonderman's powers at the cost of Simon's life.

Vargas stopped, too close for comfort. "Do not rejoice so quickly, mutant. This change merely required the formulation of a new plan, one that will call for your services a bit longer." He walked a slow circle around her, but she squared her jaw and stuck her chin out in defiance, not turning to follow his path. "Do you know where we are, Rogue?"

"One of your vacation homes?" she quipped, but the villain kept circling.

"No, but it is a place one could come to…rejuvenate." He walked away from her and stopped at the wall of hieroglyphics, and lovingly traced the carvings. Her heart lurched into her throat as she recognized a depiction of the ancient mutant Apocalypse. "Ah, I see a glimmer of understanding in those large eyes of yours. Perhaps you are not as dense as you seem."

Apocalypse was supposedly immortal, but only thanks to healing chambers where he went into suspended animation and hid from the world until he was back up to snuff. The X-Men had destroyed several of those chambers, the last one powered by a group of twelve of the most powerful mutants ever born. Rogue did a quick tally in her head. Professor Xavier, Storm, Jean Grey, Iceman, Cyclops, Sunfire, Magneto, Polaris, Bishop, Cable, The Living Monolith, Mikhail Rasputin – at least half of the twelve mutants that had been gathered by Apocalypse to power the villain's own machine were either dead or currently missing, and the X-Men had wrecked that machine. Could there have been more than one? Could anybody with enough juice fuel such a chamber? If not, what kind of game was Vargas playing? She needed to keep him talking.

"You always claimed you weren't a mutant, said _you_ were the next step in human evolution. Why would you want to bring back Apocalypse? You're crazier than I thought, sugar."

Shaking his head sadly, Vargas stepped towards her again. "Perhaps I overestimated your level of understanding. I have no interest in resurrecting the savior of mutantkind. I am only interested in what Apocalypse does best." He stepped too close to her again and whispered a hot breath into her ear that sent shivers down her spine. "Survive."

Comprehension followed that shiver down in a trickle. "You need mutants to power his healing chamber…to use on _yourself_?" Even as she said it out loud, she knew why she was here. Even though some of the twelve were long gone, with her own mutant powers he could gas the machine by forcing her to steal whoever's powers he wanted. She couldn't let that happen, she had to fight him with everything she had.

Two sets of footsteps grew louder, and Vanisher and Mesmero emerged from a darkened corridor.

"Gentlemen," Vargas nodded in their direction and wiped the dust from his gloved hands. "How nice of you to join us. Vincent, are you rested?"

"What did we miss?" Vanisher leaned his side heavily against the wall closest to the torch and rubbed his hands towards the fire. "You're not seriously revealing your evil plan to her, are you?"

Vargas put his hands on his hips and strode into the center of the chamber. "I wanted her to know. Once Mesmero has hold of her, there will be nothing she can do to stop us. But…to the depths of her soul, she will _know_ what I have done to her."

Mesmero. The hypnotist had surprised her last time, but maybe if she knew he was coming, would she have a better chance at fighting him? Rogue felt the piercing grip of icy fingers dig into her mind, and she cried out and dropped to her knees.

"Ohhh, nice try, little girl," Mesmero hissed, and it felt like he tore into her brain like cold chicken. "Even the Phoenix couldn't stop me. Who the hell do you think you are?"

The darkness closed over her and the last thing she heard was the malevolent laughter of the man she should have killed when she had the chance.


	3. Chapter 3

All characters owned by Marvel Comics

Author's notes: For my own sanity, we'll say this story takes places just before the reboot. That way, when things change that contradict my story, it won't matter, we'll say its an alternate timeline. Thanks for reading so far!

* * *

 **Chapter Three**

"This is the last spot we got a clear read on her."

Remy crouched next to the park bench to examine the crush of footprints trampled in the snow surrounding it, and lifted his gaze to meet the grim face of the former and original Captain America, Steve Rogers, though the man had aged significantly since the last time Gambit had laid eyes on him.

"Her cell phone pinged off a nearby tower, but all the security cameras in the vicinity are too far out of range to give us any clear visuals. We've had our best people looking everything over, and they're still canvasing the streets and airways for her, but it's like I told you on the phone, the girl just up and vanished."

The ground was a mess. Too many New Yorkers had beaten their path through Central Park, even in mid-winter, and there was no way to spot out of place footprints or random cigarette butts, but Remy had wanted to get all the information the Avengers had to help him in his own search for Anna.

He exhaled loudly and stood, trying to keep his temper in check. "She couldn't just vanish. City this big, with powers like hers? Even if somebody got the drop on her, there'd be witnesses somewhere! Somebody saw somethin'." The WWII veteran before him that now looked every day of his ninety years flinched and Remy raised an eyebrow. "What is it you ain't tellin' me?"

The weary hero sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. "I put her in charge of the Avengers' Unity Squad. I believed she could handle herself and I still do, but tensions on the team have been running high. One thing we were able to find in looking at scans of this area, around the time of her last cell phone signal, there were two distinct uses of mutant powers in her vicinity from unidentified sources."

Remy's red on black eyes practically bulged from his head. "Two other mutants!? Why didn't you tell me that right away? Don't you think that might be important?"

Rogers squared his jaw through the wrinkles. "As I was saying, tensions have been running high on the team, especially between Anna Marie and her Inhuman teammate, Synapse. There were some in our organization that assumed Rogue had finally gotten fed up…"

An exasperated Remy threw up his hands. "You gotta be fucking kidding me! Do you know how proud this girl has been to call herself an Avenger? She wouldn't throw that away just because she got a little pissed off!"

Cap caught Remy's shoulder in a surprisingly iron grip. "I know that, son, and I don't think she ran away, either. She's too stubborn to quit, no matter how angry she might have been. What I was actually hoping was that the mutant signatures were some of your people and that she got pulled into a mission that she couldn't let us know about."

There it was again. _Your people_. Since the resurgence of the Inhumans, mutants had been pushed even further into the mud under humanity's shoes. Seeing the expression on Remy's face, Rogers squeezed his shoulder even harder.

"I know a bit of your history with her, Gambit. I know you care about her deeply. I do, too. The first time I met her, she was just a kid, but she gave me a beating I've never forgotten. It makes my heart proud to see how she turned her life around. I wanted you to know what's been going on, but I also hoped you'd have resources that aren't available to the Avengers. Use 'em, son. Help me find her."

Other resources was a very diplomatic way of calling out Remy's connections to the criminal underworld, which opened up avenues that were completely closed off to someone as squeaky clean and public as Captain America.

"I'm gonna need a copy of those scans if you can get them to me, see if _my people_ can figure out who she was dealing with." Remy had contacted Ororo Munroe, Storm, and her team of X-Men first thing this morning. After all, suddenly disappearing had all the hallmarks of travelling with Illyana Rasputin, demon sorceress and reluctant mutant taxi service. But, no one at Stormy's X-Haven had heard from Rogue since right after their world started going to hell, though Storm herself had been unavailable for his call. There weren't many mutants left on the planet, but if Remy had to start hitting them one by one to find Rogue, he would.

Cap nodded. "I'll get Tony to send them to you right now." Rogers pulled out a slightly oversized cell phone, and if worry hadn't been clawing apart Remy's stomach, he would have had a Jitterbug joke in him.

The message from Stark was buzzing almost the instant Rogers ended his call, and Remy decided to forward it to his friend, the tech wizard Fence, with a quick text explanation. He was still sore at Fence for his forcing Remy's participation in the bid for leadership of the Thieves' Guild, but despite Remy getting shot in the head during the hubbub, it had all eventually worked out. Gambit had ended up in charge of the Guild, and his network of thieves were already hard at work discretely checking for any mention of the Avenger and X-Man Rogue across the globe. So far, nothing, but the thieves under his direction were more like independent contractors than minions. He could ask for their help, but, unlike previous Guild regimes, he wouldn't force it. If Rogue was out and about, she would stick out like a sore thumb, subtlety had never been her strong suit. Her white stripe and big personality drew a lot of attention, not to mention her gorgeous face and body.

Dammit, let that girl be okay, he silently prayed. The last time they had talked, it hadn't gone well, and he still wanted the chance to settle things between them, to maybe try things again? If anything happened to her…

"Thanks, Captain. If I hear anything, you'll be the first to know."

"Likewise." Rogers patted Remy's back kindly. "Don't worry. We'll find her."

Remy's phone buzzed again in his pocket as he walked away from the senior Avenger. He huddled into his coat and checked the message, but jerked to a stop in the middle of the now crowded sidewalk, nearly colliding with an irate jogger.

"Hey! I'm runnin' here!" The man gestured rudely on his way by, but Remy just scowled at the screen. The message wasn't from Fence, but from Shiro Yashida, the mutant Sunfire. Ice water slid down Remy's back.

' _Call me immediately'_ , the message read. Remy frowned. Shiro and he weren't what you'd call friends. Actually, Remy wasn't sure Shiro was capable of making friends, the man was such an arrogant prick, but the two had one truly horrible thing in common. Both had been changed and corrupted by the mutant Apocalypse. Why would Shiro suddenly want to talk?

Lorna Dane's call in the dead of night flashed to the surface of Remy's mind, and his knees shook so hard he had to find a park bench before he threw up. He hadn't called Lorna back, and had actually completely forgotten about their late night conversation. Remy had been in such a rush to get to New York from New Orleans as soon as humanly possible that it had slipped his mind. Lorna, Shiro, and Remy had become three of Apocalypse's Four Horsemen, servants of the mutant villain, and the alterations that had been made to Remy's mind and body had never completely gone away, despite his new lease on life at the hands of Faiza. Remy tried to steady his breathing. His horrific nightmares starring himself as the Horseman Death, Rogue missing, Lorna having trouble sleeping, Shiro texting out of the blue…what the hell was happening?

The return phone calls to Lorna and Shiro couldn't take place in the middle of Central Park, so Remy hoofed it back to the apartment he kept for a small monthly fortune on the Upper West Side.

"Mr. Wright!"

Pete, the daytime doorman, a sloppy ex-wannabe-hippie who had followed Phish on tour in the late nineties and never really came all the way back down, only knew Remy by one of his aliases. 'Mark Wright' was from Kentucky and traveled a lot on business. Pete knew 'Mark' was a mutant, Remy had yet to find a great way to disguise his unique red on black eyes, but Pete had a serious bro-crush on Remy's alter-ego.

"Long time, no see, buddy!" Pete stood and brushed the crumbs of a sub sandwich from his dark button down, then reached across the security counter to shake hands.

"How y'all doin', Pete?" Remy always saved his best Sam Guthrie impersonation for this particular pseudonym. "Did ya get to any o' the Dead's farewell shows?"

The affable everyman's face lit up like a Christmas tree. "Hell, yeah! I'll send you the download!" The man hardly instilled a lot of faith in terms of security, but the building itself was conveniently located, and Remy had installed his own safety measures and alarms to cover his upstairs apartment.

"Sweet!" Remy saluted as he backed away. "I gotta make some calls, but I'll catch ya later, man!" He waved through the closing elevator doors. When they shut, the mask of neighborly warmth fell to the floor. _Anna._ Where the hell was she?

He opened the door to his empty apartment. The trio of kittens that had entered his life courtesy of Rogue's adopted mother, the terrorist Mystique, Raven Darkholme, were being fostered by his neighbor across the hall. At first, the woman had just been popping in to Remy's place to feed the fuzzballs and change their litterbox when he couldn't, but he had been spending more and more time on the road without landing at a permanent address, so his neighbor had taken them on full time. He hoped he could visit them while he was here, but they were at the bottom of a very long laundry list, Rogue at the top.

He shot another text message to Fence, hoping the man would get the urgency of the situation and call him back, then braced himself and dialed Shiro's number. The hot-headed Sunfire picked up before the first ring was through.

"You call this immediately?"

Remy took a deep breath and shook his head. Shiro was a whiny bitch on his good days. When he was angry and upset, Lord help those who had to deal with him. "Sorry, Shiro, but I've got a bit of a situation myself…"

Shiro cut him off. "I do not care what garbage you have managed to get yourself into. What concerns me…"

Remy wasn't in the mood for his shit. "Rogue is missing," he growled.

There was a drawn out pause, long enough Remy wondered if Sunfire had hung up on him.

"Missing? What do you mean, missing?" The tone of the man's voice almost sounded concerned. Rogue was one of the few people Shiro could actually stand to be around, the two had a strange bond forged by Anna's forced absorption of his powers and personality a few years ago in Japan. She seemed to understand better than most what made the Japanese mutant tick.

Remy ran a hand through his chin-length hair. "Like I said, missing. Got a call from Steve Rogers, said the Avengers ain't seen her for days, no word from her. She hasn't called me, or Ororo…I'm goin' crazy here. I was with Rogers when you messaged me. We were searchin' her last known location, in Central Park, but there's nothing. It's like she vanished without a trace!"

Silence again, and Remy looked at his phone to make sure it was still connected.

"You are in New York City?" Shiro finally asked.

"Oui, just got in this morning. I have a place on West 75th. You in Japan?"

"Hai. I will join you in a few hours."

"A few hours? I appreciate the thought, but do you really think flyin' yourself halfway round the world is a good idea? Especially with all that mist floating around?"

A scoff came through the speaker. "The distance is of little concern, and it seems the mist does not affect me. I am quite immune. It is decided, I will be there shortly. There is much to discuss."

Remy was quickly losing his patience. "If it's so damn important you talk to me, why don't you just spit it out?"

There was a mirthless laugh. "If only it were so easy. Tell me, LeBeau, how have you been sleeping?" Before Gambit could respond, Shiro disconnected the call.

"FUCK!" Remy threw his phone onto a nearby sofa and scrubbed his hands angrily down his face.

Shiro was immune to the Terrigen Mists, too. That couldn't be a coincidence, and neither could the man's obviously troubled nights. The connection none of them had ever wanted still seemed to bind them tightly together. Lorna. He needed to call Lorna. He stooped to retrieve his phone and it rang again in his hand.

Fence. All thoughts of Polaris and Sunfire took an immediate backseat.

"Hey, Remy, how's it going?" The man's voice was as big as he was, and Remy felt a twinge of relief. Fence was the best. If Anna had even wandered near anything electronic, the man could find her.

"Merde!" Remy sank onto the couch and leaned his elbows on his knees. "You got now idea how good it is to hear your voice, mon ami."

"I'll bet. So, your girl's in some trouble?"

"Oui. Worse than usual, if you can believe it."

"Got your download. Thanks, by the way. Stark's private number is attached to it. Should give me a nice little backdoor into Avengers' tower…"

"Ha! Thought you already had one after they fixed you up?"

"Doesn't hurt to have a spare."

"What you think? Is there somethin' we're missin'?"

That big laugh boomed into Remy's ear. "There's a lot you're missing, my friend, not the least of which is your pretty girlfriend. Come on over now and I'll show you what I've found so far."

* * *

Hours later, Remy's eyeballs were ready to burst from staring at the computer monitors wallpapering the converted warehouse that served as Fence's office.

Fence sighed and leaned back, the rolling chair beneath him threatening to crack under his tremendous girth. "There's a reason Stark is who he is, Remy. They tapped every outdoor camera for forty square blocks, every registered drone, every police or news chopper that was in the area. One sweep of the cell phone tower she was there, the next she wasn't."

Remy stared bleakly at the image frozen onscreen. Anna, huddled in an oversized leather jacket with her white stripe buried in a knit stocking hat Remy had given her two Christmases ago, was strolling into Central Park's entrance off of Columbus Circle. She was scowling, a look Remy recognized as more irritated than angry or scared, trying to blend into the crowd. What had she been doing there? Just taking a moment to herself, or had she been going to the park to meet someone? His throat seized up.

"You gotta give me something more, Fence." He jumped up and angrily gestured to the screen. "This can't be the last time I ever see this woman!"

"Calm down, Remy. I get that you're scared. I know how much you care about her."

Shaking his head, Remy flopped back down in the chair next to Fence and caught the man's eyes, or eye as one of the orbs looking at Remy was cybernetic, along with a huge chunk of the rest of him, though the electronic parts were a tad more sophisticated since his upgrade.

"No, you don't. I love that woman, more than I've ever loved anyone else. And I let her walk away from me, didn't even put up a fight. I'm such a fucking idiot…and now…"

"I'm not giving up yet. I've got a few ideas. Stark's good, but he's still mostly on the up and up. There's a lot goin' on in this city that's on the down low if you catch my drift. Your girl's smart and tough. If she's in trouble and can get word to somebody, she will."

Remy didn't want to say it out loud, but Fence's words of encouragement dropped the bottom out of his stomach. Rogue was tough, not just tough but super-powered, and word was she had a whole new slew of powers at her disposal thanks to Wonderman. She had been trained by the best. For her to get hit and not kick up a fight? He hoped he was overreacting, that Captain freakin' America was overreacting, and that she had truly gone off on her own to get her head straightened out, but he knew in the depths of his soul that wasn't the case. Steve Rogers had fought Nazis for fuck's sake. The man didn't seem prone to hysterics. If his instincts were lining up with Remy's?

The light of Remy's cell phone resting on the desk in front of him announced a text from Shiro.

 _'In NYC. Address?'_

Smiling ruefully, Remy wondered if Shiro was texting and flying. He didn't want Sunfire to come here, Fence valued his privacy too much, so he sent Shiro his address with promises he'd be there within the half hour. He stood. "Fence, I hate to leave right now, but I got somebody in town that needs my help. Are you…?"

Fence rose and sandwiched Remy's hand between his paws. "Hey, you know I like a challenge. I'll keep hacking, see what I come up with. I'll call you in a couple of hours." He pulled Remy in for a bear hug. "It'll be all right, man."

"Thanks, mon ami. You got now idea how much this means to me."

Shiro was waiting on the sidewalk and the sun was setting by the time Remy hopped out of the cab.

"You are late," the Japanese mutant said disdainfully.

Remy shouldered past him and held open the door to his apartment building. "Good to see you, too."

Even though Remy had ran a few jobs with Shiro months ago, he hadn't actually seen Sunfire de-powered, in person and out of costume, since the man's accident, but Anna had filled him in on what had happened. On a mission with a previous incarnation of the Unity Squad, Shiro's sub-atomic powers had been pushed to the limit and he had suffered serious self-inflicted burns over much of his body. Remy was thankful that doorman Pete had gone home for the day. The night guy was far less talkative and merely nodded in their direction before they got on the elevator.

Pride was always one of Shiro's weaknesses, and since the accident he had rarely been seen in public, but whatever was happening to him now was serious enough to bring him out of his exile. The winter weather gave him an excuse to be mostly covered up, but what was exposed of Shiro's once handsome face was a mishmash of scars and shiny pink skin. His eyebrows and hair were gone, but there looked to be evidence of recent skin grafts.

"It is rude to stare, gaijin," Shiro hissed.

Inclining his head, Remy met his eyes. "You look good, Shiro. And that's not just me blowin' smoke up your ass. You been through a war, mon ami, we all have. The fact that you still breathin', still walkin' tall after everything you been through, just shows how strong you are."

Shiro sighed loudly and edged out of the elevator first when they hit Remy's floor. Remy deactivated the alarms and stepped aside for his reluctant companion, who entered the apartment and eyed the surroundings contemptuously.

"Something wrong, Shiro?"

"I expected worse," Shiro replied. The Yashida clan had been one of the richest in Japan, but their criminal connection had hardly benefited the noble Sunfire. Still, at times Shiro had been his country's greatest hero and was used to the finer things in life. Normally, Remy would have given him a hard time for being such a snob, but the fight was out of him today.

"You hungry?" he asked instead and jumped back in surprise when an angry Shiro threw his jacket across the room.

"No, LeBeau. What I am is tired! I…I cannot sleep, and when I do, I am plagued by nightmares as if I am a frightened child!" There was the flicker of flames at Shiro's fingertips.

"Don't s'pose these nightmares have anythin' t'do wit' Apocalypse?"

The tongues of fire spread up Sunfire's arms and circled his head. "How did you know that LeBeau!? Answer me!"

Remy held up his hands. "Calm down, Shiro, no need to be settin' off the smoke detectors." He stepped towards the agitated mutant slowly. "I've been having them, too, but I think you already suspected that. It's why you came looking for me."

Shiro doused his own spark. "Hai. I did not know where else to turn. For good or ill, you know better than anyone what we went through thanks to that monster."

"Me and Lorna…" Remy stopped mid-sentence. "Oh, _shit_!" He fumbled for his cellphone.

"What is wrong, LeBeau?"

Flipping to Lorna's contact, he hit the button. "She called me yesterday. Sounds like she's havin' the same problem. Was supposed to call her back, but then Rogue…" C'mon, cherie, he thought as the phone rang and rang, pick up the phone, I'm sorry…The call went to Lorna's sing-song voicemail. He left a brief message and texted the same with Shiro breathing down his neck.

"She did not answer?"

Remy gave me a withering stare. "Non." He didn't do a good job keeping the snark out of his voice.

"I do not like this. Is she in the city?"

"Not New York. She went to D.C. after Snow deep-sixed X-Factor."

Shiro retrieved his jacket and stuffed his arms into the sleeves. "Then, what are we waiting for, LeBeau?" His hand was turning the doorknob before Remy even registered what he was suggesting.

"You want to drop in on her doorstep because she didn't answer her phone? Isn't that overreacting just a little bit?"

"Is it?" Shiro levelled eyes the color of hot coals at Remy. "You feel it as well, don't you? In the back of your mind, something clawing, scraping, trying to gain purchase. Something is wrong. Somehow, something has…awoken."

He had to look away because he knew Shiro was right. In their world, he had learned the hard way that there were no such things as coincidences. "How quick can you get us to D.C.?"

The question elicited a hearty laugh from Sunfire. "I cannot carry you, not unless you have suddenly become flame retardant. We will have to take more pedestrian routes to reach Lorna Dane."

* * *

"Fuck you, Remy LeBeau."

Lorna Dane, the mistress of magnetism known as Polaris, muttered under her breath and pushed her cellphone across her kitchen's marble counter in disgust. She grabbed the half empty, or half full depending on your frame of mind, bottle of Moscato and poured herself another generous glass.

She wasn't going to call him again. She wasn't. He said he'd call her tomorrow, which was today, but the hell if she was going to look like some needy whack job, blowing up his phone over a couple little nightmares. She shuddered and wrapped her flowy cardigan around her body and headed for her living room. Little nightmares was a massive understatement. For the past several days she had woken from gut wrenching night terrors that left her petrified and drenched in sweat. Nothing seemed to give her a good night's sleep and she was exhausted. Pills hadn't worked, bubble baths hadn't worked, exercising until she practically threw up hadn't worked, wine didn't work either, but what the hell, she was always willing to give getting blasted a second chance.

She had been through enough these last few years to certainly warrant a few nightmares, but these were different. They felt so real, and the sights, smells, even the sounds were pulled directly from her horrifying memories of the time she spent as a Horseman of the villain Apocalypse. She had made some dumbass moves over the years, had been pulled into some shitty situations beyond her control, but Apocalypse took the cake. Who knew she'd lead the kind of life where having her body controlled and used for years by the psychic Marauder Malice would be only the second worst thing that had ever happened to her?

Flopping into an overstuffed cream leather armchair, she grabbed the remote and pulled up Netflix. Depression was nothing that a good _Scandal_ binge couldn't cure. The still silent cellphone sat on the kitchen counter, visible out of the corner of her eye, and as far as she was concerned, it could stay there.

Olivia Pope in her winter white knee length coat commanded attention, but Lorna found hers waning, her eyes drifting towards the kitchen and that damn phone. Halfway through the first episode, her glass of wine was empty and her nerves frayed. She pressed pause and took a handful of steps when she heard a funny pop, like a balloon bursting or a car backfiring. She spun around to find a trio of people standing in her living room. None were exactly strangers to her, but it took her a split second to recognize who they were, and that split second hesitation nearly cost her everything.

"Rogue!" Lorna set the wine glass on the counter as Anna Raven, her sometimes fellow X-Man, had drawn her attention first. "What are you…?" The beautiful, normally sassy woman stared vacantly at Lorna with dead green eyes. Lorna took a step back when she realized who had accompanied the Southern powerhouse. "NO!" she screamed and twisted her body away, and in the same motion threw up a magnetic shield that shoved the trio away.

The man called Vanisher was how they had ended up uninvited in the middle of her living room, but the mutant Mesmero was someone Lorna Dane had hoped never to see again. A long time ago, a lifetime it seemed, Mesmero had manipulated and abused Lorna, the first in a long line to do so, and she had sworn never to let the man get his hypnotic clutches into her again.

She heard the sound of breaking glass that was a body slamming through her patio door just off the living room, and hoped Rogue was okay, but bolted for the back door. A strong hand caught her arm and wrenched it back, forcing her to the floor.

"Aw, is that any way to greet an old friend?"

Mesmero's voice made her skin crawl. She couldn't let him get her, she couldn't! She squeezed her eyes shut and fought off Mesmero's hypnotic influence the best she could, but apparently Rogue hadn't been so lucky, it was her hand that held Lorna in an iron grip. The girl must have gotten ahold of some superstrength again because her hold threatened to snap Lorna's wrist.

Through the pain, Lorna tried to catch Rogue's attention. "Rogue! _Anna!_ You have to fight him! Don't let him do this!" She pleaded, but it was clear the usually stubborn Rogue had lost control to the son of a bitch.

A bleeding Vanisher stepped up behind Rogue, brushing tiny shards of broken glass from his clothing. "Would you finish this already?" he barked at Mesmero, and Lorna felt a cold numbness spreading from the back of her skull. The faint buzz of her cellphone rattled the counter, too late.

"Back off!" Mesmero hissed, and the cold touch of his powers dribbled down her back like ice water.

"What's the matter, Vince?" Vanisher laughed. "Little rusty?"

 _Rusty. Iron. Metal. Magnetic. F_ rom somewhere deep down, Lorna Dane grabbed ahold of the magnetic field of every appliance in her house and overloaded their circuits, flaring as bright as she could in a terrific flash of energy. The house around her exploded in an enormous electrical fireball, and she flew across the yard to land in a smoking heap. The newborn red and orange flames stretched their tongues high into the night sky. Flopping her spinning head against the cold crunch of snow covering her lawn, she muttered a silent prayer that superstrong meant invulnerable and that Rogue had survived. Those other two bastards, she could give two shits whether they lived or died.

Lorna couldn't fight the dizziness anymore and the blackness swallowed her, but not before two lifeless green eyes appeared before her and the touch of soft skin brushed her numb cheek.


	4. Chapter 4

All characters owned by Marvel Comics

* * *

 **Chapter Four**

"How much farther?"

Remy gripped the steering wheel of the rental car to stop himself from slapping the shit out of the man in the passenger seat. It had been a long drive to D. C. _Really_ long. In the last few hours he had learned more about the Japanese mutant then he ever had wanted to know, not the least of which were Shiro's secret love of Elvis Presley and his penchant for side-seat driving.

"We're close," Remy said through clenched teeth. "This is her street. House should be just up…" The answer died on his lips, drowned out by the wail of police sirens and firetrucks. The glow of red and blue light built on the horizon the closer they came to Lorna's address. He slowed the car and peered in disbelief out the windshield.

"What is it?"

"Police. Emergency crews. Lots of 'em. Something big happened." His guts clenched in outright fear at the growing light of the fire in the distance. "I'll give you three guesses where they're at."

Shiro's voice rose in panic. "We are too late?"

Sighing, Remy eased the car down the street past neighbors who had emptied their houses to stare at the scene. "Only one way to find out." He parked the car just outside the barrier of squad cars surrounding what was left of Lorna Dane's house.

"You cannot just walk up and ask those in authority!"

"Watch me." Unfolding his long legs, Remy stepped from the vehicle and into the pits of hell. The noise was deafening, shouts, sirens, and worried voices all rose in a fevered pitch over the roar and hiss of the firehoses. Where Lorna's house should have been was a raging inferno that sent a shower of sparks raining hot onto the sidewalk, and an army of firefighters rushed to douse the flames that climbed their way into the night sky. The smell and choke of thick black smoke shrouded the gathering crowd of spectators in an eerie orange glow, and dozens of police officers fought to keep the bodies back behind their barricade. Remy spied an ambulance to one side of the melee and made his way towards it with Shiro on his heels.

"Hold it!" A female officer, so short she barely reached Remy's shoulders, held up her hands to stop them. Over her head, Remy saw two paramedics wheel a stretcher towards the open back of the ambulance, and a tumble of their friend's neon green hair was visible beneath a respirator.

"Lorna!" Shiro yelled behind him.

Idiot, Remy thought, she can't hear you, but the officer raised an eyebrow at them.

"You know Miss Dane?"

"Yes. What has happened to her? Is she all right?" Shiro sounded agitated and his behavior was clearly making the petite brunette police officer suspicious.

"Take it easy, mon ami," Remy whispered, and placed a hand on Sunfire's shoulder, but Shiro shrugged it off violently.

"Take it easy, LeBeau? She is clearly injured, yet you tell me to take it easy!?"

The officer pushed her way between them. "Did he just call you LeBeau?"

It was on the tip of his tongue to lie, it was what he always did and he had hundreds of aliases and cover stories memorized and in the system, but for some reason, Remy did something he rarely did. He told the truth.

"Remy LeBeau. This is Shiro Yashida. We're some of Miss Dane's…co-workers."

She frowned. "I.D.s."

Remy pulled out his wallet, Shiro produced his passport. The officer's brown eyes flickered with a flash of pity as she looked from Shiro's passport photo to his now injured face, but only for a moment.

She handed back their documents. "A Remy LeBeau was listed as Miss Dane's emergency contact. I'm assuming she doesn't know more than one." She gestured to the ambulance that was pulling away from the scene with its lights screaming. "We're not exactly sure what happened, but it looks like an explosion caused by a gas leak. Your friend was unconscious when we found her. She got lucky. They're taking her to Memorial Hospital."

"Merci, cherie." Remy bowed and kissed the back of the officer's hand, and he and Shiro pushed back through the crowd.

* * *

His fingers closed around her delicate throat and squeezed, but he couldn't stop his own hands. Her green eyes widened in horror and despair but the monster inside him only laughed and gripped tighter.

"Remy!" she gasped. He couldn't fight what he had become, but he screamed from somewhere deep and silent for her to fight for him, to break free of his hold, even as he drowned in a black sea of nothingness in the pit of his mind. "But…I love you!"

The monster that was him just smiled, but to his shock, she smiled back, her expression a mirror image of Death. With the bare skin of her hands, she reached for the creature of Apocalypse and slowly drained him, the rotten decay of his flesh spreading over her beautiful skin…

Remy jumped awake, nearly toppling himself from the cracked vinyl chair, his heart hammering into his throat.

Shiro turned from his place in front of the hospital room's lone window. "Sleep well?" he asked, but Remy just flopped back into the uncomfortable chair and scrubbed his hands down his face.

Sighing, he glanced at the still unconscious Lorna. It was almost dawn, they had been here for hours keeping a near silent vigil over their friend. She hadn't stirred, baffling the doctors on duty. She showed no visible signs of injury despite her proximity to the explosion that had destroyed her home.

Remy swallowed a smartass remark when his phone buzzed in his pocket. His still tripping heart skipped a beat at the sight of Fence's number on the screen. "Tell me you got some good news for me, mon ami?"

Shiro scowled at Remy and stepped closer to eavesdrop.

"I found something, took a zoom off of somebody's web cam in a nearby high-rise. I don't know how good it is, it's pretty grainy. Cleaned it up the best I could, but I got a shot of what I think is your girl with two guys I've never seen before. At least I think I did." Remy's mouth went dry. "Sending it to your phone right now."

"Fence, I could kiss you!"

The computer whiz chuckled. "You may not be saying that after you see how crappy the footage is. I'm still working on cleaning it up, but hopefully it helps. I'll keep lookin'. Keep me in the loop, Remy."

Remy scowled at the photo. Grainy was being polite. There were three figures. One was Rogue, but he was only certain of that because he knew her body and stance anywhere. One figure was standing right next to her, but it looked like…not it, _he_ , Remy thought…had green skin, but that could have been a trick of the pixels. The other…also a guy…was seated on the back of a park bench, wearing what looked to be Waldo's hat, but the image quality got really funky as the red and white stripes of the hat echoed oddly onto the man's face in continued black lines.

"What is it?" Shiro stood in front of him with his arms crossed over his chest.

"Fence, an IT guy I know, found a security camera that picked up Anna and the mutants she met with, but it's from so far away I can't really tell who they are." He frowned at the shot again and zoomed on Waldo. "Still, this one, there's somethin'…" The face of the mystery mutant fell in place like a line of dominoes. "Merde!" Remy groaned and leaned forward. "I'm such an idiot!"

Shiro rolled his eyes. "No one is disputing this fact. Do you wish to elaborate?"

"We been saying all along, it's like Anna vanished!" he flashed the screen at Shiro, who glared at the photo.

"Is that…Vanisher? I thought he was dead?"

"No body was ever found, and who hasn't died in this line of work only to miraculously rise from the grave?" He stood and started pacing angrily. "That son of a bitch! What does he want with Anna? What's his game?"

"And who is his partner?" Shiro had zoomed the photo out and pointed to the person standing next to Rogue. "The man with green skin?"

A small voice called from the hospital bed. "Did you say…green skin?"

"Lorna!" The men dashed to Polaris's bedside. Remy crouched and found her hand amongst the IV line and blankets. "Cherie, what happened? Are you all right?"

The neon green eyes that matched the swirling mass of curls on her head were unfocused, but they found Remy's. "Rogue happened."

He had to swallow before he spoke. "What are you talking about?"

She struggled to sit, but Shiro moved to the head of the bed and pushed her back down, then used the controls on the bed to raise her to an upright position. "Lorna, Rogue is missing. As you would suspect, Remy is quite agitated and concerned. If you have seen her…"

Her laugh was thick with phlegm. "Oh, I've seen her all right. She attacked me last night, and she had company!" Remy stood and covered his mouth with one hand while Shiro showed Lorna the image Fence had sent. "That's them. Vanisher…and Mesmero."

"Mesmero?" Shiro asked incredulously, and Remy shared his disbelief. Mesmero, an X-Men baddie from back in the day, had lost his powers along with tens of thousands of other mutants on M-Day.

She glared at them. "I'd know that bastard anywhere. I don't know how he got his powers back, but he has. He tried to get his hooks into me, but I know his little game. There's no way I'm letting anyone take control of me like that again."

Before being de-powered, the mutant known as Mesmero had supposedly been the world's greatest hypnotist. He had once convinced a squad of X-Men that had included Storm, Wolverine, and the Phoenix masquerading as Jean Grey, that they were circus performers, keeping them hostage for days.

A bad feeling gnawed at Remy's stomach, and Lorna confirmed it. "They popped right into my living room, the three of them. Mesmero tried his crap, and when that failed, Rogue attacked me, but it wasn't her, Remy. It was like she wasn't in the driver's seat. I tried to talk to her, but her eyes were just…blank. We fought…"

"And destroyed your home," Shiro stated flatly.

She groaned. "Yeah, that was me. I didn't mean to, but it got out of control. She was so strong! Where did she pick that up again? She nearly broke my arm! After the explosion, I landed in the backyard. The last thing I remember was her standing over me. Then, nothing. I blacked out."

Fuck, fuck, fuck, Remy screamed inside. "They're controlling her!? I gotta find her!" He rushed for the door, but stopped. Why would they need Rogue? If they had Mesmero, they could control anyone they wanted, whoever they were. There must be something specifically that Rogue could do that no one else could…there was only one thing that sprang to mind. "Lorna, do you remember, did Anna…touch you?"

Lorna blinked a few times. "Yeah, she did. Right before I blacked out. But…" she lifted a finger and used her magnetic powers to raise the bedside rail. "I still have my powers."

"Hers don't work like that anymore. She can borrow somebody's but still leave them use of their own."

"How long can she hold onto powers?"

Remy shrugged. "Not sure. During that Phoenix Five crap, she had Bobby Drake's powers for days at a time."

"What are you thinking?" Shiro asked quietly.

Shaking his head, Remy reached for the door handle. "I don't know. I'm just thinking out loud. I better let Rogers know what we found, see if they've got anything."

* * *

If finals didn't kill her, they might at least send her to the chiropractor.

Jean Grey gave her backpack a secret telekinetic boost to get it off the table, and headed out of the library and into a night crisp with new fallen snow. She trudged slowly back to her dorm room, lost in thought.

ESU's campus was pretty enough for being smack in the heart of New York City, but Jean sorely missed the sprawling woods surrounding Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters almost as much as she missed the man himself. She sighed deeply. Her world had been turned topsy-turvy by Hank McCoy, or at least an older version of the boy who was her friend and teammate. She and her fellow X-Men had come forward into the future to stop a mutant genocide supposedly perpetrated by one of their own, but they had gotten stuck here, and had all been forced to make the best of a lousy situation.

Jean had learned way too much about the woman she was meant to become, and ever since had been trying desperately to avoid that same fate, wanting nothing more than to fade into the background of humanity, to live a normal life, but thanks to the actions of the older version of her ex-boyfriend Scott Summers, Cyclops, that normal life now seemed impossible. Mutants, Inhumans, M-Pox, and Terrigen Mists were on everyone's minds these days, and if anybody knew what was on everyone's minds, it was Jean. Her arrival in the future had caused the emergence of latent telepathic powers that made it extremely difficult to drown out the fears, the wants, the desires of those around her, but she was trying and getting better at it every day. Her parents, the Professor, and now even Scott, were all dead, though not her Scott. _Her_ Scott only hated her.

She sniffed and angrily scrubbed the tears that had formed with the back of her furry mittens. Stupid cow, she scolded herself. Do you think the great Jean Grey of this time, the holier-than-thou host of the cosmic force known as the Phoenix, cried over her ex-boyfriends? There had to have been a mistake. Some joke of the timestream. There was no way, Jean thought, no way that in just a few years' time she could save the universe like the other _she_ had. How could anyone live up to expectations like that?

A funny popping noise interrupted her pity party and by reflex she cast out a net of inquiry with her telepathic power, finding three new minds in her area that hadn't been there before. Barring her way on the sidewalk was a man and a woman, and the woman was familiar to Jean. Rogue, was it? Jean slowed her steps and reached out with her power, shocked at what she felt. In her mind, the Rogue she knew was silently screaming for Jean to run away, the woman's astral form pounding on an invisible barrier that prevented her from controlling her own body.

 _'Who?'_ Jean's psychic essence floated in Rogue's mind. ' _Who is doing this to you_?' In the real world, Jean Grey's body backed away slowly, her telekinetic powers at the ready. Her telepathy was still new to her, and it was so hard to use both powers at once, to split her focus.

Images flooded her mind from Rogue's, the face of a brutishly handsome man Jean didn't recognize. Rogue had battled this man nearly to the death and barely won, but now it seemed he was looking for revenge.

From behind the barrier, Rogue's eyes widened and she mouthed ' _Behind you!'_

Jean's body thudded into someone who held her fast. "Long time, no see, sweetheart," a voice hissed hot into her ear, and she felt a numbness spreading over her.

Rogue and the other man closed the distance between them, and before Jean could stop Rogue, the woman pressed a cold, bare hand to Jean's forehead. No time for thought, Jean reacted on pure reflex and shoved them all away with her powers, rocketing herself into the night sky. Miles away, she landed with a thud into an alley, panicked gulps of breath sending huge puffs of smoke streaming into the air.

"Get a grip!" she mumbled to herself, wobbling when she tried to stand. She leaned against a rough brick wall.

Mesmero, she realized as she replayed the scene in her mind. And Vanisher! She knocked her head back against the wall. Some big hero, she had run like a scared rabbit, and left a fellow X-Man behind with the bad guys! Somebody had to know, she had to tell someone what had happened so they could help Rogue.

Kicking herself, Jean pictured her backpack still lying in a heap on the ESU sidewalk, miles away, but luckily her phone was in the pocket of her puffer jacket. Her hands were shaking when she found Ororo's number. Cellphones. So strange how attached people had become to these things. Storm didn't answer and Jean was on the verge of tears again. Who could she call?

She bit her lip. There was Storm's friend, the gorgeous guy with the accent and the five o'clock shadow. Ororo had said in case of an emergency, he would still be on Earth…


	5. Chapter 5

All characters owned by Marvel Comics

Author's notes: Thanks everybody for reading so far!

 **Chapter Five**

Remy had gotten no answer from Rogers or any of Captain America's recently formed Unity Squad. Since Cyclops had done his best to ruin the world and had driven what was left of mutantkind into hiding, heroes were stretched few and far between, nearly to the breaking point. There weren't enough bodies to put out the constant fires that erupted between humans, mutants, and the quietly growing Inhuman demographic.

As soon as the day shift's doctors had arrived, Lorna had checked herself out of the hospital, and was now softly snoring on Remy's backseat, wrapped in his trenchcoat. The trio was on their way back to NYC and the relative safety of Remy's apartment.

It had been too many days since Anna had disappeared and Remy knew there was no way she would willingly help two D-list villains with whatever bullshit they were up to, but he had a sinking feeling they weren't the ones giving orders. They had to find her, but how? Vanisher could be anywhere in the blink of an eye. They needed a teleporter, but Illyana Rasputin was too busy keeping Storm's X-Haven out of the clutches of Limbo's demon hordes, and besides transportation, they needed a way to track Anna and those assholes, or at the very least figure out what they were playing at. If he could figure out their game, he could get a step ahead of them.

"What are you thinking, LeBeau?" Shiro broke four hours of silence from the passenger's seat.

Remy looked at him out of the corner of his eye. "I'm thinking I don't know, and I don't like it when I don't know." Why would they go after Lorna? If they needed her power for something, why didn't they just take her, too? What advantage would there be of Rogue having her powers instead?

The Bluetooth on Remy's phone pinged a number he didn't recognize onto the car's touchscreen. He didn't want to answer some unknown with Shiro and Lorna in the car, but the thought that it could be Anna overrode his hesitation and he hit the answer button.

"'Allo?"

A breathless voice responded. "Is this…is this Gambit?" The voice was young and scared, he could tell that much, and vaguely familiar, but he couldn't put his finger on it.

"Oui. Who is this?"

"I'm sorry to bother you, but I didn't know who else to call. Storm gave me your number for emergencies, and she said you were in New York…" The girl was bordering on hysterical.

Remy and Shiro exchanged confused glances. "Who is this? You in some kind of trouble, petite?"

"I'm sorry, it's Jean. Jean Grey. We met at the school. Y'know, the one named after me?" She laughed a shaky laugh, but Shiro gasped and Remy heard Lorna stir in the backseat.

"Did she say… _Jean Grey_?" Shiro's jaw was hanging to the floor.

The teenaged version of the X-Man Jean Grey, their long dead teammate, had been brought forward in time, along with the rest of the original team, to prevent the future they were all living. It hadn't really worked out, and last Remy knew, the kids couldn't go home, and Jean had gone into hiding. From the shocked look on Shiro's face, Sunfire hadn't had the pleasure of the girl's acquaintance.

Remy held up a hand to quiet him. "What happened, cherie? Where are you?"

"I'm near Washington Square Park, just outside ESU. I was on my way back from the library last night when three mutants ambushed me!"

Remy's stomach dropped and he had to grip the steering wheel knuckle-white to keep control of the car.

"Are you injured?" Shiro cut in, and they heard Jean sigh.

"No, they didn't hurt me, but they wanted to. One of the mutants, though, I knew her! It was Rogue!"

* * *

Cursing the New York City traffic block after crawling block, they finally spotted the time-displaced redhead pacing beneath the arch at the entrance to Washington Square Park.

Ignoring the honks and angry gestures of other drivers, Remy double-parked the rental and hurried towards the girl. Something that resembled relief spilled over her at his approach, but for Remy, the sight of the fresh-faced Jean Grey stirred up something else entirely, a deep sadness. Jean Grey had been one of the most compassionate and giving people he had ever met, and her loss still tore at the hearts of those who had known her. Seeing her younger self right in front of him was almost too much to handle, it was like coming face to face with her ghost. He and the adult Jean had never really been what you would call close while she had been alive, she was much too buttoned-up for his taste and he was too much of a scoundrel for hers, but they had been teammates, had counted on each other when their backs were against the wall. When he had first joined the team, he had toyed with the idea of making a play for her, but anybody could see back in the days of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters how much Jean Grey had loved Scott Summers, Cyclops. The flirt and gambler in Remy favored long odds, just not impossible ones, and he had learned it was best not to fight fate. The older Jean had been a beauty for sure, but any attraction to her had been forgotten the second Remy had laid eyes on the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, his own destiny, Rogue...

Jean's big green eyes widened when he reached her. "Oh my God! You _love_ her!" she squeaked, and Remy scowled. "I didn't know you loved Rogue!" Usually he was pretty damn good at keeping telepaths out of his head, part natural resistance, part skill and charm, and most telepaths were polite enough not to poke around uninvited. The girl's face colored to match her hair. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to pry, you're just practically screaming it."

He bit back the lecture, but made sure to project it just the same. Jean looked duly rebuked. "You okay, petite?" he touched her shoulder lightly and she jumped.

She pulled back from him. "Yeah, I'm fine, I just…I just wanted somebody to know what happened. You have to help her!" Worry wound its way through Remy's chest and Jean balled up her mitten covered fists and dug them into her temples. "It was Vanisher! I barely recognized him, but he popped right in front of me in the dark, and Rogue…" She squeezed her eyes shut. "Gambit, you have to shut your mind up because I can barely think straight! Do you want to hear this or not?" Remy swallowed thickly and she continued. "I saw her and I recognized her, but when I read her, it was…it was like she was screaming from the bottom of a lake…I couldn't reach her, and then Mesmero…" She grabbed Remy's arm and dug in. "He had her mind wrapped in a blanket and he tried to get me, too, but my powers went a little crazy and I ran away…I just ran away…"

Remy placed a tentative arm around her shoulder and looked up to see Shiro leading a limping Lorna, still wearing his trenchcoat, through the crowd. "It's okay, cherie."

The girl sniffled against his shoulder. "But it's not. I ran away. She needed me, and I ran away." She looked up at him angrily. "I just…I just can't get pulled back into all of this. You have to understand. I can't, not after everything that happened with Scott…your Scott…I just want to live a normal life! One that doesn't involve cosmic firebirds that destroy galaxies or mutant martyrdom, or anybody's expectations of who I am or who I will be!" She glared at Lorna, whose eyes were bugging out of her head at the college aged sight of her deceased friend. Remy understood the feeling. Even though Lorna had heard what their Hank McCoy had done, to see the young girl in person was truly a shock.

Jean stepped from under Remy's arm. "They went after her, too?" She gestured to Lorna and Remy nodded. "This is bad. You have to find Rogue, you have to help her."

"Did you get anything from those bastards that have her?"

Shaking her head fiercely, she stuffed her hands into the pockets of her puffer jacket. "I don't know what I got. None of it made any sense. Here…" She grabbed a bewildered Remy's face between her fuzzy mittens and he felt the hot knife shove of her telepathy into his mind. Images of Jean's attackers flashed before him.

"Mon dieu!" he hissed. The girl had pushed through his defenses like they were tin foil.

"What are you doing?" Shiro roared and moved on them, but Lorna stopped him.

Anna. There she was, a startled Jean happy to see a familiar face in a crazy world, until she had reached out for the beautiful X-Man and Avenger only to find Rogue wasn't at home. Remy felt what Jean had felt and his heart hurt in his chest. Anna had been aware of what was happening to her, but thanks to Mesmero pulling her body's strings, she couldn't do anything about it. But there was more, images Rogue's mind had been screaming at Jean through the haze. Memories, events of the past that meant nothing to the girl, but nearly dropped Remy to his knees. A face dominated these memories, a face he had never wanted to see again. _Vargas_. In Jean's recounting of events, they had moved to attack her, and Rogue had touched her forehead just as Mesmero had taken a crack at hypnotizing her. Before he could claim her, Jean's powers had kicked in as a reaction and shoved them all away.

The young telepath broke contact with Remy. "Some big hero, huh? I'm sorry. I screwed up. Mesmero, I could feel him digging his claws into me, and it was just a reflex…"

It was on the tip of Remy's tongue to ask her to come with them. With her telepathy she could help them track Anna, but the words died on his lips when he met her gaze. He would be dragging her into a war, and those green eyes already looked haunted enough by everything that she had seen and done. This Jean Grey deserved a chance to live a normal life if that was what she really wanted, and Remy owed it to the memory of his friend, the woman he had known, to give her younger self that chance.

"We'll find her, petite. Count on it."

"Here." She pulled a small electronic device from her pocket and pressed the metallic sphere into Remy's palm. "Take this. It's a portable Cerebro Storm gave me. It should help you find her."

"Jean," Lorna held a hand aloft towards the girl, but Jean backed away from the trio of adults slowly.

"I can't help you. I'm sorry, I really am." She smiled at another question Remy didn't ask aloud. "Don't worry, I'll be fine." Her mind reached out for his. _"I know you'll find her. Love like yours? Believe me, it doesn't happen every day."_

* * *

"Get some sleep, Erik. You look like shit. We'll talk more tomorrow."

The sometimes mutant terrorist Mystique, Raven Darkholme, waved at Magneto as she walked down the dimly lit hallway towards her room.

Magneto, at times called Max Eisenstadt, at times called Erik Lehnsherr, at times called much worse, put a hand to the entrance of his own quarters and exhaled loudly. He _was_ tired. Weary to the bone for certain, but tired of the constant fighting, tired of the dance of death mutants and humans continued to spin. Every time he had thought it couldn't get any worse, that the world had reached rock bottom, he would only be proven horribly wrong, and he was sick of it.

Using his powers to open the door to his darkened makeshift living space drained him more than it should, more than the others would ever know, but he wouldn't let it stop him. His malfunctioning gifts would not keep him from the fight. His presence, his image, was now more crucial to the cause than ever. Mutantkind needed a symbol, someone to rally them. With Charles gone, Scott gone, with the mutant revolution nearly crushed by the Inhumans and their poison, he could not cower and ignore the call to arms.

After a night arguing strategy with Mystique, all Magneto wanted was a long night of dreamless slumber. The accommodations provided in their current base of operations were hardly luxurious, but he had endured far seedier and surely would again. He felt for the light switch and started in surprise at what was illuminated within the small space.

 _"Anna?"_

Rogue, a woman he had cared deeply for and lost, was sitting on the edge of his bed, one shapely leg crossed over the other, a strange smile toying at her full lips. For a split second, Magneto thought it was perhaps the shape-shifting Mystique playing a cruel joke on him. The woman knew how much her foster daughter had meant to him, how much it had hurt him when Anna had rejected him, but he had just left Raven in the hallway barely ten seconds ago. Even Mystique was not fast enough to get into his room ahead of him.

"What are you…?"

Rogue stood and pressed one finger to his lips. There had always been a spark between them, but he had thought her continued love for the traitor called Gambit had finally extinguished those feelings. Looking at her now, he wanted to believe he had been wrong, though his instincts were telling him otherwise.

"Anna…" he tried to catch her eyes, but she pressed herself against him and pulled his bewildered lips to hers. The spark quickly became a fire with her curves molded against him, but after a few wonderfully frenzied heartbeats, he felt the pull of her mutant powers tugging at his own. His surprised eyes snapped open and he tried to twist away, but her arms wrapped him in a vice grip. She broke contact and covered his mouth with her hand, then pushed him onto the bed. He struggled to sit up, to ask her what the hell was going on, but she shoved him onto his back and straddled him, her hips against his. Mixing pleasure and pain was hardly a novel idea to him, but Erik had never known Anna to be so brazen and his body responded enthusiastically to her newfound boldness, despite the danger of her motions. She was strong enough that she could easily hurt him, he could barely move and was at her mercy. He decided to let himself enjoy the breathless back and forth of whatever she had planned, until he finally caught sight of her eyes and froze in horror at the sight. The beautiful emerald orbs, normally so full of passion and fire, were dead, lifeless. Bile rose to his throat when he understood she was not in control of her own body, and he tried to scream from behind the muzzle of her gloved hand.

Other voices emerged from the corners of the room. "You're a twisted fuck Vince, you know that?" Rogue stilled and held him tight, but wouldn't let him turn to the sound. She stared blankly at the wall over his head.

"Payback's a bitch," another said.

"Stop fuckin' around," the first snapped. "Let's get out of here."

"Oh, c'mon, can't I play a little more?" The second's voice was familiar, but Magneto was spiraling down, losing focus.

"No dice. You heard what the boss said. Finish it."

Magneto no longer had enough of his power to fight back when her lips crashed against his again and he fell into darkness.

* * *

"Vargas?" Lorna crinkled her nose and sat up a little straighter from where she was curled on the brown leather lazy-boy in Remy's apartment. "Should I know that name?"

"Maybe not," Remy smiled ruefully and stood, peeling off his t-shirt, "but the bastard gave me this." His fingers traced a thick scar from where a sword had just missed piercing his heart. Lorna gasped. "Rogue, she got a matching one courtesy o' that villain. Ran us both through like pineapple chunks on a shish-kebob." He pulled his shirt back on and flopped down on the couch next to Shiro. "Bitch of it is, I thought he was dead. Lot of that goin' around, I guess." He was angry and worried, tired and wired at the same time. He needed sleep, they all did, but he was afraid of what he would see when he closed his eyes. "Somethin' else. Mesmero had Anna touch Jean."

Shiro nodded curtly. "That is the abilities of two extremely powerful mutants they have managed to capture."

"Two that we know of." Lorna waved a hand at them. Remy jerked his head towards her. "Think about it. Vanisher can go anywhere in the blink of an eye. They hit me, they hit Jean, all in less than twelve hours. Who's to say we were the only ones?"

* * *

The scalding water trailed down the tense muscles of his back and he watched it swirl into the shower drain at his feet. Lorna was settled in the spare bedroom, Shiro on the couch. He had offered Shiro his room, but Sunfire had turned up his nose at the idea.

"I will not sleep anyway," he had assured Remy, "but I would sleep even less wondering who else had rested between your sheets."

Remy wrapped a towel around his waist and wiped the steam from the vanity mirror. The face that greeted him was haggard and there were bags beneath his eyes. Rogers still hadn't returned his calls, neither had Storm. If the assholes that had Rogue were using her to collect the powers of mutants as Lorna had suggested, Ororo's team needed to be warned. They and their mutant refugee camp would surely be a tempting target.

Stepping into the adjoining bedroom, he found the dresser in the pool of light from the bathroom and retrieved a pair of boxer briefs. _Vargas._ Remy threw the wet towel back towards the bathroom and raked a hand through his soaked hair. Is that who had Anna? That son of a bitch hated her thanks to the scrawled future predictions of Irene Adler's diaries. Rogue and Vargas had fought to what should have been his death, but the woman Remy loved wasn't a killer and had let the villain live. Vargas had disappeared and had left them alone for years, but word was Mr. Sinister had murdered the man as part of his culling of anyone with knowledge of the future. Guess they couldn't be that lucky.

There was the sudden glow of a blue light from behind, and Remy whipped towards it. The woman perched on the edge of his bed sneered at him from over the portable Cerebro Jean had given him, the orb activated in her hand.

"Where are the grandkids?"

The terrorist Mystique, Raven Darkholme, watched Remy through the transparent holographic map of Forge's little gizmo.

"Grandkids?" Remy crossed his arms self-consciously over his naked chest. Mystique was Rogue's foster mother and had never thought he was good enough for her daughter, trying too many times to tear the couple apart.

"Okay, grand-kittens then." Remy retrieved his jeans from the floor and stepped into them. Months ago, Mystique had inexplicably given Remy the trio of furballs that were now living with his neighbor down the hall.

"Slumber party," he said sarcastically and grabbed a clean t-shirt from the dresser. So much for trying to sleep.

Raven smiled softly and her eyes followed Cerebro's shimmering red lights that represented the world's dwindling mutant population. "There's so few of us now…" she murmured.

He snapped on the lamp next to the bed. "What do you want, Raven?" If he had known where she and her team of villains in X-Men's clothing had been hiding, he may have gotten a hold of her to tell her about Rogue, or to ask her where the girl was. Despite the tension between the women over the years, Remy knew Mystique loved her daughter in her own twisted way, but that hadn't erased Raven from his list of suspects.

She laid the small Cerebro on the bedspread and sighed. "We had a visitor tonight." Her yellow eyes were haunted when they met Remy's.

"Merde," he hissed. "Rogue."

Raven stood and backed him against the dresser. "What the hell is going on?"

He returned her ferocious glare. "You tell me."

She lowered her head and Remy could have sworn there were tears in her eyes when she turned away, but it could have been a trick of the light. "I was…talking shop with Magneto tonight, most of his team out on other business. I heard a noise, the sounds of a struggle, from Erik's room. I had to break down the door to get in, and when I did…well, you probably don't want to know what I thought they were doing at first, and I almost walked right back out, but something wasn't right. Her eyes…"

Remy ran a hand roughly across his haw. No, he really hadn't wanted to know what Raven assumed was going on between Rogue and Magneto. After Remy had ended his relationship with Anna, she had rebounded with the reformed villain Magneto, a man she had always harbored strong feelings for.

Mystique continued. "Before I could react, that asshole Vanisher stepped out of the shadows, dragging Mesmero behind him. They grabbed Rogue, and poof!" She waved her hands in the air.

"And Magneto?" he asked, even though he had a feeling he knew.

She flopped back onto his bed and crossed one leg over the other. "Still unconscious when I left. She grabbed a whole heap of his powers." Raven swung her leg impatiently and regarded Remy carefully. "You don't seem that surprised by my story, LeBeau. Tell me what's going on with my daughter, or I swear…"

Resigned, Remy filled her in on everything he knew and most everything he suspected. While he spoke, she watched the points of light on Cerebro's map.

"Vargas," she spat. "Sinister always was sloppy. I didn't think those idiots that took her had enough balls to go after her on their own." She looked up at Remy. "Rogue was always meant to kill him, did you know that? It wasn't just in the diaries, Irene spoke about it to me, over and over. It was the girl's _destiny_." She laughed a harsh laugh. "I know what you think of me, LeBeau, and you know what I think of you, but we both love that silly, stubborn girl. I won't let him have her."

Remy nodded. "Lorna, Jean, Magneto…what does Vargas want?" Some of the most powerful mutants left on the planet, their energies channeled into one body, focused…there was something, a thought, on the tip of his proverbial tongue…

Mystique stood. "So, what's our next move?"

" _Our_ next move?"

She crossed her arms over her chest. "You think I'm going to just sit by and do nothing while that asshole has my daughter?" Remy opened his mouth to argue, but she lifted one hand and twisted it in front of his face. "Besides, against Vanisher, you might need _this_."

A teleportation ring, probably procured during her time on the island of Madripoor, caught the light spilling from the bathroom. She held the hand out to admire the sparkling band. "We're a packaged deal, Gambit."


	6. Chapter 6

All characters owned by Marvel Comics

Author's notes: Team Remy keeps on growing! I've always loved the awkward loathing that exists between Gambit and Mystique and have been itching to play around with it in a story, so I hope everybody enjoys their back and forth.

Since Rogue's absorption powers and her lack of control after absorbing Wonderman haven't been addressed in the comics since Remender's run on Uncanny Avengers, in this story, I decided that she's back in control of her abilities and can touch people. Because, why not?

Thanks again everybody for the reviews!

* * *

 **Chapter Six**

After a new nightmare on the lazy-boy in the living room, Remy got up before the sun and started cooking breakfast for the strange group of guests under his roof. Cooking always relaxed him, and he let his mind wander while he took a sip of hot coffee and poked at the thick strips of frying bacon.

Vargas. The man surely had an axe to grind against Anna and the rest of the X-Men, but he had always proclaimed himself to be the next step in human evolution. What would he want with a collection of mutant powers that would fade within the next few days? He replayed what he could remember of their fight with Vargas all those years ago. At the time, Rogue's powers had been more out of control than usual. Every ability she had ever absorbed had been at her fingertips. She had been one of the most powerful beings on the planet, and she had recently duplicated that feat by absorbing every superhero she could lay her hands on and bringing down a Celestial during a battle with the Avengers. But what did that…

"Morning."

The soft padding of Lorna's feet interrupted his train of thought. Her green curls were a tangled mess and she looked as tired as he felt. He grabbed a mug from the cupboard and poured her a cup of coffee. She was wearing one of Remy's flannels and a pair of boxers. Except for what she had been wearing during her fight with Rogue, all of Lorna's clothing had gotten blown up with her house. They'd have to scrounge her some working clothes. Sitting at the kitchen's island, she stifled a yawn behind her hand, the hospital wristband still visible beneath the shirt cuff.

"Thanks, Remy."

"Sorry I didn't call you right back, boss." He reached over the counter and covered her hand with his. As the squad leader of X-Factor, she had barely found her footing before the team had been dissolved.

"It's okay. Shiro told me you're having nightmares, too?"

Sunfire stepped into the kitchen as if summoned by the mention of his name, and eyed the pan of bacon contemptuously. "That smells atrocious." Remy offered Shiro a crappy bag of Lipton tea he had found stashed in a cupboard, but received a withering glare in response. "Why did you sleep in the living room last night? Your snoring kept me awake."

"I don't snore."

"Yes, you do." Mystique's voice drew the trio's attention. "Like a chainsaw." Though the shapeshifter could generate any clothing for herself, she had grabbed one of Remy's t-shirts to sleep in, but he was just thankful she hadn't slept naked in his bed.

Lorna sputtered. "What the hell is _she_ doing here?"

"Nice to see you, too, Dane." Raven sat next to Lorna and smiled graciously at the cup of coffee Remy handed her.

"Remy?" An exasperated Lorna held her hands wide.

"What do you want me to say? Rogue's her daughter. She says she can help. How do you want your eggs?"

Sighing, Lorna glared at him over her steaming cup. "Scrambled. Don't change the subject." She turned to Mystique. "Is this real help you're offering, or your usual back-stabbing, hidden agenda help?"

Raven stood and stalked out of the room.

"Well done, Lorna." Shiro busied himself burning toast with his powers while Remy shook his head over the pan of eggs.

"Am I right?" The green haired girl asked.

Mystique walked back into the room and shoved an electronic tablet with a zip drive sticking out the side into Lorna's hands. "You're wrong."

Furrowing her eyebrows, Lorna flicked her fingers across the touchscreen. "What is this?"

"A list I've been working on. All remaining mutants, and their last known locations." Remy nearly dropped his spatula. "I figured we could use Forge's fancy little toy and cross reference the list, see if we can find anything or anybody out of place, see if Rogue paid any other big guns a visit…"

Shiro placed a plate of still smoking toast in the center of the island. "That sounds very time consuming."

"For us, maybe, but for somebody good with computers…" Mystique nodded expectantly at Remy.

Fence.

"I may know a guy that can help…"

* * *

Remy held the door of Sugar Muffins Bakery wide for Raven, who had worn a different face for their trip.

"You should have stayed with Lorna and Shiro," he muttered, but she just laughed and tossed newly blonde hair over her shoulder.

"Don't pout, your face will freeze that way. Besides, my list means I'm coming."

Remy smiled at the giant man behind the counter and locked the door behind them, flipping the sign to read closed. Fence frowned at his companion and Remy winced. "Sorry, mon ami, but you can trust her. Sort of."

Raven's outline shimmied and melted, reforming into her usual blue-skinned self. "Well, trust her at least as much as you ever did, right John?"

Fence's big face split into a wide grin and he stepped around the glass case filled with cupcakes and pastries and pulled Raven into his trademark bear-hug. "Ha!" the big man roared. "How ya' doin' sweetheart? Been a long time!"

Remy raked a hand through his hair. "Is there anybody you don't know?" he mumbled, but wasn't sure who he was really asking.

"C'mon in the back, and let's take a look at your toys."

They walked past the industrial grade stand-up mixers and bags of ingredients that weren't just for show. Fence was an accomplished baker and a love of cooking was one of the things that the two men had in common, along with a knack for getting in trouble. Fence opened the door of a walk-in cooler that served as the hidden entrance to his other business. A warehouse full of tech and weapons that could outfit a small army greeted them as they stepped through the backside.

Remy produced the mini-Cerebro to an approving Fence and Raven pulled out her drive for him to download the mutant registry.

"So, we're looking for anybody out of place? Mutants where there should be no mutants?"

Turning a chair around, Remy straddled it and rested his forearms on the back. "Best plan we got right now. We know people are gon' travel, but with all that mist flyin' around, most mutants are probably hanging close to home. We're hopin' somebody'll stick out like a sore thumb."

Fence placed the mini Cerebro next to his computer's keyboard and connected it with a cable. The device flashed to life and the man picked it up in his burly hand and admired it lovingly. "Thing of beauty. One of Forge's designs?"

"Yeah," Remy snorted. "How'd you know that?"

"How do you know an artist from their brushstrokes?"

Raven reluctantly gave Fence permission to play in her files, and with a few keystrokes, the machines were doing his bidding. Remy stared at the pinpoints of light shining from Cerebro's world map. They were red, indicating mutants, but some of them had a second circle of black surrounding the red.

"What's with the black ring?" he asked and reached out to point at one of them, touching his finger to the hologram. The dot responded as if he had pushed a button and a photo and name appeared in the air over the dot. _Tabitha Smith. Boom Boom_. He hit another dot, one in a cluster of three. _Monet St. Croix, M._ He hit a dot without the outline and no photo appeared. "So, some of the mutants' signatures and identities are already loaded into Cerebro's database?"

"Looks that way. Does it have all the X-Men?"

He met Raven's eyes and they both began pinging every outlined dot they could find. Where was she, she had to be there….

A frustrated Mystique stared at her own photo from one of the New York City dots. "Would Cerebro even recognize Rogue with all the mutant powers she's absorbed?"

He shook his head. "Your guess is as good as mine. She might…" The sentence died on his lips.

"What is it?" Mystique came around to his side. "Did you find her?"

Remy just grinned wryly. "Non, but I found Stormy."

Leaning on his shoulder, Raven scowled at the screen. "I didn't realize her highness was missing."

"Been trying to reach her since this mess started, but she hadn't gotten back to me. It's weird, her dot wasn't there and then it was. This one, too." He touched an outlined point next to Ororo's and Bobby Drake's photo popped into view.

"Well, hello," Mystique said to Iceman's picture.

"This is crazy," Remy muttered, "there has to be a dozen mutants surrounding them! What the hell is…?"

The red dots of Bobby and Ororo disappeared beneath their fingertips along with half of the remaining mutants in their near vicinity. Before they could react, the floating pictures of the X-Men popped into view again, hundreds of miles from their original location.

Raven fooled with her ring and grabbed Remy's shoulder. "Let's go, LeBeau," she grumbled, but Remy shrugged off her hand.

" _Go_?"

"You wanted to talk to her, right? Then let's go, now, before they disappear again." She laid a hand on him and called to Fence over her shoulder. "John, be a dear and text me their coordinates if they jump again?"

Fence waved, but didn't look up from his keyboard. "Sure thing, sweetheart."

A flash of white light swallowed them both, and Remy lost all feeling in his hands and feet before with a pop and a thud, the pair landed in a barren, frost covered field, wearing only their street clothes.

"Thanks a lot," he jeered in Mystique's face, but choked on his words. Towering over them was a sentinel, four stories of mutant hunting metal. He threw Raven behind him and charged a brace of playing cards with his mutant energy.

"By the Goddess!" The howling wind circled them and Storm, Ororo Munroe, dropped from the sky between them and the robot, joined by Iceman. "Cerebra!" she gestured to the hulking metallic monstrosity. "Stand down!" She turned to face them. "Remy, is that you?" The old friends embraced. "What are you doing here?"

"Could ask you the same question, Stormy." He released her but the face of the X-Men's leader fell when she glimpsed Remy's traveling partner.

"You are keeping quite interesting company these days, Remy."

Raven waved. "Good to see you, too, Ororo. Love the hair." She winked at Iceman. "Long time, no see, Drake. Are you ready to admit that I ruined you for all other women?"

Bobby's icy eyebrows drew together in a scowl. "Only if you're willing to admit the same."

Remy ignored them and loped an arm around Storm's shoulder. "Where ya been, chere? Been trying to get ahold of you for days." Now that he was close, he took a good look at her and inhaled sharply. Ororo's costume was torn in several places and there were scorch marks on her face. "Stormy, what happened? Are you hurt?"

She laid a reassuring hand on his. "I am unhurt, Remy, but it is fortunate we have found you." She closed her crystal blue eyes. "As to what happened…"

"It was Rogue, Gambit!" Bobby's haggard voice snapped Remy's attention. "She came out of nowhere and tore us apart. What the hell is going on?"

"If you had bothered to return any of this man's damn phone calls, you would have known what's been going on!" Raven crossed her arms over her chest and stood at Remy's shoulder. Despite his mounting anger and frustration, he was oddly comforted by the momma bear ferocity rolling off of Raven, for however long it lasted. He just hoped their truce wouldn't end with a knife in his stomach.

Ororo nodded. "You are right of course, but communicating from our base of operations has been more of a challenge than expected." She raised her eyes to meet Remy's and he caught the hidden plea in their depths. X-Haven's location was a secret from most, and he would do his best to keep Raven from finding out and passing it along to her boss Magneto, who was on the lookout for soldiers to enlist in his mutant army.

Remy swallowed the rage and impatience that was eating a hole in his stomach. "Can you walk us through what happened?" He took Ororo's hand in his and squeezed it reassuringly. It had to be bad, she really looked dead on her feet, Bobby, too.

"As you know, we have been offering sanctuary to those mutants in need. Between Illyana and Cerebra…" she gestured to the towering robot, which Remy now realized was standing awkwardly and sparking, pieces of its surface crushed in or missing. "…we rescue those mutants who are in peril. We were on such a mission when Rogue appeared, seemingly out of thin air."

Bobby defrosted himself and his real face twisted. "I was so happy to see her, y'know? Thought she was there to help. I can't even think of the last time we talked, but then she charged us, went for Cerebra, started ripping her apart."

"I did not take it personally," the machine stated flatly and a small child, no more than ten years old, poked her head over the robot's curled fingers cradled against its chest.

Remy's heart sank. "She attacked Cerebra with that kid in its arms?" He knew it wasn't Anna's fault, and that no one who knew the facts would blame her, but he felt an immense wave of pity for his love. He wished she had no inkling or memory of what was being done to her, but because of Jean, he knew that wasn't the case and said a silent prayer to give Anna strength.

"Yeah," Drake ran a hand through his disheveled sandy hair. "We tried to stop her, to get her to talk to us, but she just didn't say anything and started going after us instead. She was kicking our asses! We barely got away!"

"Thanks to Cerebra, we managed to escape," Ororo interjected, "but only just. The robot is damaged, but managed a small teleport, enough to afford us breathing room. I believe it was Rogue's intention to damage the unit enough to strand us, so we would be unable to escape her assault. She was manifesting powers I have never seen her wield, it was as if we were facing an entire squad of X-Men instead of one woman, and she would not acknowledge us or our entreaties, content only with battling us. Remy what has happened to her? Where did she gain such newfound abilities?"

Remy shifted his gaze to Raven, still in place at his shoulder. Raven stuffed her hands into the pocket of the fur-trimmed parka she had shifted onto her body and nodded, giving him the go ahead to include her contributions to the story.

"Stormy, it's complicated, but did Anna…touch either of you? Did she borrow your powers?" Both battered X-Men visibly paled in the already dim light and even without their answering, Remy knew. Grim-faced, he walked them through the last few days while Raven wore a circle around Cerebra's feet.

When Remy was done, Iceman flash froze himself. "What are we waiting for? We're wasting time, we gotta find Rogue!"

Remy saw Ororo's spine stiffen and she squared her shoulders. "Robert, Illyana will be here momentarily to secure Cerebra and the child."

"Fine!" Bobby yelled. "We send the kid with Triple-A-Illyana, and then we find the assholes that are doing this to Rogue!"

Storm's voice dropped the temperature of the already frigid air. "Have you forgotten your duty, Robert? We cannot simply abandon X-Haven and our charges to take part in some ill-fated rescue attempt."

Remy and Bobby exchanged mirrored expressions of shock.

"I can't believe what I'm hearing!" Bobby's yell rose into the night air. "This is Rogue we're talking about here!"

"Are you serious, Stormy?" Remy whispered, but his further pleas were interrupted by the glowing arrival of Illyana Rasputin, Magik, teleporting in courtesy of one of her stepping discs.

The leggy blonde took a slow look around at the strange gathering. "Hello, everybody. Storm, you called for a cab?"

Turning to Illyana, Storm gestured to the declawed robotic hunter. "Cerebra has been damaged. Can you please return her, and us, to X-Haven?"

Illyana saluted. "Sure thing, boss." A giant circle of light opened behind the robot and swallowed it whole, but Bobby crossed his arms over his chest and glowered at Ororo.

"I'm not going back. Rogue needs us, and she's family. Have you forgotten that?"

Illyana stood next to Ororo, and Raven rejoined Remy, with Bobby caught in the middle.

Ororo's voice was cold steel. "Have _you_ forgotten we have a responsibility to the children in our care, or the countless others that are still desperate for our assistance? Can you weigh the life of one against all of those in need?"

Remy opened his mouth to scream at her, but a surprisingly riled Bobby beat him to the punch. "You're damn right I can! This is Rogue we're talking about, _Rogue_! She's one of my best friends and I'm not just gonna let those assholes have her! I don't know what happened to you, Storm, that you don't still feel the same way. We're X-Men. No one gets left behind. I'm with you, Gumbo!"

He took a determined step towards Gambit and Mystique, but Remy saw Ororo motion silently to Illyana, the circular glow of a portal opening beneath Bobby, and he disappeared.

"You fucking bitch!" Raven roared, but Remy could only stare at the woman he had always considered one of his best friends. The bright glow of another portal surrounded Storm and Magik.

"I am truly sorry, Remy." Ororo's hollow apology was lost to Illyana's powers.

Remy turned his head in disgust. "So am I, _Storm_."


	7. Chapter 7

All characters owned by Marvel Comics

Author's notes: No Rogue last chapter, but lots of our girl this week, which isn't necessarily a good thing for her.

Part of this chapter was inspired by an old Classic X-Men backup story. If you've never read any of these stories, seek them out because most of them were fantastic, especially the ones written by Claremont and drawn by John Bolton. They were like Claremont's own fanfiction! The one I am thinking about in particular was from Classic X-Men #17. In it, Mesmero hypnotizes the Phoenix and is a total scumbag to her. That story always informed my impression of the character of Mesmero and what a sleaze he could be. Don't worry though, Rogue is as safe as she could be in her situation.

Anyway, thanks for reading and reviewing!

* * *

 **Chapter Seven**

Vargas caressed the keyboard of the machine he had come to know with the intimacy of a lover. He had spent weeks, countless hours, toiling to repair the damage done to Apocalypse's temple, and countless more molding it to fit his grand scheme, but it would be worth it in the end, when he would live forever and his own end would never come. The ancient, yet advanced celestial computer had been an invaluable, soulless ally, offering up the greatest of prizes, immortality. It was so close now, he could almost taste it…

He stood back and surveyed the machine's latest, greatest inspiration. Following its instructions, Vargas had dismantled the dozen holding pens in the healing chamber's original configuration and had used the pieces to build a singular, supremely reinforced pod for Rogue, meant to hold her captive while she was slaved to the contraption and freed from Mesmero's mind control. When he had captured Rogue, intending to have her fuel the chamber by manifesting the powers of mutants she had absorbed in the past, Vargas had at first been bitterly disappointed to find her abilities no longer worked in that manner, and even more distressed to find her afflicted with M-Pox, the Inhuman plague currently ravaging the world's mutant population. She was damaged, _infected_. He had thought all of his hard work and effort had been in vain and had nearly destroyed the wretched woman, but the machine, the beautiful, intelligent machine, had shown him the flaws inherent in this strategy, and had helped him devise a truly inspirational solution to his problem.

The more he learned of her alien powers, the more confident he became that all was falling into place as it should. Rogue's newfound ionic abilities, taken from the deceased hero Wonderman, were a bottomless well of energy, a well she had apparently been unwilling to tap. Calculations made by the computer had shown that this ionic energy could be used to intensify the strength of any mutant ability she had stolen. It could actually _extend_ the length of time she retained powers she had taken, prolonging the absorption nearly threefold. Where once twelve mutants had been necessary to fuel the healing chamber, he was gleeful to discover only half that number would be needed thanks to the untapped reserves contained within her body, and she could hold those abilities for days at a time.

He had procured a sample of her blood, and the computer was hard at work, Vargas hoping that it would be able to concoct an inoculation for her Terrigen Mist derived pox, a miraculous cure the world at large would clamor for but he would never share. Let the mutants rot, he had taken all he needed. With Rogue's body repaired, her new powers could be the key to unlocking all of Apocalypse's secrets.

Relying on mutant garbage like the woman, like Vanisher and Mesmero, churned his insides, but it was a necessary evil. He knew they were all plotting, waiting for the opportunity to escape or attempt to murder him in his sleep, but with the computer's assistance Vargas had programmed a failsafe into the power dampening bands he had strapped to all of their wrists. If any of them tried hard enough to remove the bands, or if Vargas himself were badly injured, the computer would send a shock through each of their bodies worthy of the electric chair. He could buy their loyalty for a time, but it didn't hurt to have a little insurance policy. He didn't know if the shock would be powerful enough to subdue Rogue if she regained partial access to her ionic abilities, and he had been forced to add three more dampeners to her wrists to control the raging storm of mutant energy within her, but if they proved insufficient in the end, he would deal with her more hands on.

This needed to be finished quickly. The window on Rogue's retention, even with the ionic boost, was closing, and there was still one key ingredient to the recipe of immortality. Only six mutants were now needed as fuel for the chamber, but the computer had been very clear on which powers specifically would give Vargas what he wanted. They were nearly there, but the last piece of the puzzle was proving the most elusive. He really had hoped to avoid dealing with Gambit altogether, but…

A muffled, rhythmic thud pulsed through the chamber, and for a moment Vargas mistook it for the pounding of his own heart, but the noise, drumbeats he realized, was coming from deeper inside the stone maze. Irritated at the interruption, he followed the sound until he emerged into the torch lit main chamber where they had been keeping Rogue. He froze, and rage spilled down his back like the flow of molten lava.

Rogue, clad in the bare whisper of her lacy lingerie, was swaying seductively to the beat of the music, her green eyes lidded and lifeless. Vanisher and Mesmero had their backs to him and were captivated by their entertainment. Standing, waving a fistful of dollar bills aloft and gyrating to the obnoxious music blaring from his cellphone, Vanisher shouted words of encouragement.

"Shake it, sugah! Daddy likes!"

Mesmero cackled from where he sat cross legged on the stone floor and his fingers conducted the sick symphony. "Should I have her do the splits?" he asked wickedly, but an enraged Vargas marched forward.

"Stop this!" he roared and both men whipped wide eyes to the furious man that towered over even the upright Vanisher. Rogue, controlled by Mesmero, froze like a department store mannequin. Vargas stalked menacingly towards them. "What did I say about her?" he raged, but Vanisher merely shrugged.

"You said not to touch her, boss. We haven't laid a finger on her."

The crack of Vargas's backhand sent Vanisher crashing across the room to land in an unconscious heap. He turned his fury to Mesmero and yanked the man up by his collar.

"Hey!" Mesmero scrambled to find his footing on the floor from where Vargas dangled him. "What's the big deal? You mind-rape her everyday with her own powers! We were just having a little fun…"

Vargas tried to remind himself that this cockroach was needed, though he longed to squeeze the life from his wretched body. "Have her dress herself," he ordered. " _Now_."

Mesmero swallowed, and it rolled along the strong fingers pressed close to his throat. He couldn't use his hypnotic powers on Vargas, he had discovered that, much to his horror, in the first few hours his gifts had returned, but he was hoping he could charm the brute in other ways.

"Are you sure you want me to do that?" he raised his green eyebrows and nodded towards Rogue again. When Vargas flicked his gaze towards the woman, one of her hands, driven by Mesmero, slid between the valley of her perfect, creamy breasts, down the plane of her taut stomach, coming to rest on the scrap of lace covering the curve of her hip. "Just a little nudge," Mesmero tittered, "that's all it would take. I won't tell if you want a peek."

The woman began skimming the fabric down, revealing the smallest glimpse of the dark curls covering the mound of her sex. She was stunning, Vargas couldn't deny that, could imagine her naked and writhing beneath him, begging for mercy as he claimed her, but only of her own free will. Not like this. Deep down, he knew he was a monster for using her for his own selfish purposes, but this was a line he would never cross.

His fingers closed around Mesmero's quivering throat, and his eyes burned. "I will not ask again."

* * *

It had been hours since LeBeau had left with the treacherous Mystique in tow, and Shiro Yashida was fed up with watching an agitated Lorna pace the small apartment. He had escaped to the building's roof and watched the maddening flow of traffic on the streets below. The wind whistling through his jacket was frigid, but he warmed himself with the heat of his own fire and sighed. An unfamiliar feeling crept over his heart. He would never admit it to anyone else, but the woman named Rogue was one of the few people on the planet he truly cared for. He knew what the others thought of him, that he was a heartless, egotistical maniac, and they were probably right, but Rogue had always taken the time to look for the chinks in Sunfire's armor. Her powers, despite the grief they had caused him all those years ago in Japan, had been something of a blessing in their odd relationship. She knew him better than he knew himself and he never had to explain himself or justify his actions to her, and he was thankful there was one person on the planet that truly understood the burdens he placed upon himself.

Lost in thought, he nevertheless heard the pop Lorna had described, and turned to the sound.

"Konnichiwa, Rogue. Is it my turn?" With a sinking feeling, he saw that Lorna had been correct, there was no light or life behind those enormous eyes, normally the color of emeralds, now only a dull green. He knew her loathsome companions had to be near, but he wanted to draw them away from the still injured Polaris. "I am afraid I will have to make you work for it."

Erupting in flames, he launched himself into the sky, a blazing streak above the Manhattan high-rises. He wanted to keep the danger away from civilians and to minimize any collateral damage and aimed for the river, but before he could change course, Rogue snared him in the iron cage of her superstrong arms. They somersaulted through the air, engulfed in the subatomic fireball of his own making. He didn't want to hurt her, but she was hurting him. It wasn't her fault, he knew what it was like to be under someone else's control, and knew he would forgive her absolutely anything when he felt her bare cheek press against his burning skin.

* * *

 _"Bitch!"_

Raven screamed into the dark void left by the women's departure. Surprisingly, Remy agreed with her, and couldn't believe he would ever feel that way about Ororo, a woman he loved like the sister he never had. He understood the tremendous pressure Storm was facing, at least he tried to. With Xavier gone, Logan gone, Scott gone, with Magneto in full asshole mode and Inhuman gas poisoning the mutant well, Storm had assumed the thankless role of savior. She was right, there were people counting on her leadership, but he couldn't help but wonder if her harsh dismissal and willingness to sacrifice Rogue would have held true if it had been Kitty Pryde or Kurt Wagner who had been in danger. Apparently even goddesses had lousy double standards.

He turned to tell Raven to get them the hell out of there, but was interrupted by the buzz of his cellphone.

"Lorna. I better take this," he mumbled and turned away from the roll of her yellow eyes. "Sorry, chere, we got a little sidetracked…"

"I don't care!" Lorna shrieked into the phone and Remy winced and pulled it away from his ear. "Get back here, now! Rogue came after Shiro! I'm taking him to the emergency room!" He met Raven's hardened stare and put the phone on speaker to let her listen.

"Tell us what happened, Dane." Raven was already adjusting her teleportation ring for the return trip, but Remy stilled her with his hand on her wrist. They needed to know where they were going, not just start diving head first into the deep end again.

"Where are you?" Remy tried to draw the information out of the obviously frazzled Lorna.

"On the way to Mt. Sinai. Shiro was up on the roof and they ambushed him! He took off to draw them away from the apartment, but Rogue followed him and they fought! I saw the fireball from the window and barely made it to him before he hit the concrete!"

Remy flinched and ran a hand through his shaggy hair, and listened as Lorna continued to come unglued. "She drained him and just dropped him! I think his arm is broken, he smacked into the corner of a building before I could catch him!"

"All right, take a deep breath, chere. We'll be there shortly." He hung up and pulled up the internet. "We probably shouldn't teleport right inside the hospital, we'll need a secluded spot. I'll get you some coordinates."

"Remy?"

His fingers hovered over the screen. Raven rarely called him by his first name, and never without an insulting tone. When he looked up at her, her lips were pursed into a hard line.

"I think we should go see Fence first."

He blinked. "What? You heard her, Shiro's hurt. They need…"

She held up her hands. "I know, I know, but Dane can handle it. There's really nothing we can do for them right now. We need to go see John. This is the first time that Forge's Cerebro has been actively monitored during one of her attacks. Think about it!"

Understanding bowled him over. "With Cerebro hooked to Fence's computers, we'll be able to see the scans of my roof. We'll know if Cerebro knows Rogue, or if not, what her energy signature looks like." He grabbed her by her shoulders. "Woman, I could almost kiss you!"

Shrugging off his hands in mild disgust, she snagged the collar of his jacket. "Save it for my daughter, LeBeau."

* * *

She woke from a nightmare onto that same stone floor, shivering and bootless in her charred flannel shirt and jeans. Sitting up, she was surprised to find herself alone again, and even more surprised to find more of Vargas's little bracelets circling her wrists, a half dozen in total.

" _Mother fucker_ ," she swore and bashed her wrist against the chamber floor furiously, trying her best to break either the bands or her bones, but after coming up with nothing but bruises, she collapsed back against the stone wall. She stared again at the power dampeners, and it dawned on her that the skin beneath them, though filthy and covered in soot, was unblemished. "What the hell?" she muttered. The M-Pox that had been plaguing her since her exposure to the Terrigen Mists was gone, like it had never even been there. A mystery for another day, she shoved it to the back of her mind. Her pounding hadn't roused any of her captors, but she could hear the echo of raised, angry voices. Good, she thought, let the bastards tear each other apart. She needed to get out of here, wherever here was, and try to get word to the Avengers, or to Storm, or Remy…

Determined, she gritted her teeth and forced her aching body to its feet. Most of the time she had been aware of what they had been using her and her powers for, though it was fuzzy, disconnected, like seeing through Vaseline, but she remembered enough to be sick to her stomach. In stocking feet, she staggered away from the voices and into the winding maze of ancient corridors. She had no idea where she was going or how the hell she was going to escape. After a few confused turns, her panic mounting, its weight heavy on her chest driving the breath from her lungs, she stumbled onto a statue that moved.

Ozymandias. Her heart skipped a beat and she gave in to her shaking knees and sank to the cold, damp floor. Her escape attempt was surely over before it even began, or so she thought. To her shock, the slave of Apocalypse smiled as softly as a man made of rock could and with an outstretched arm, pointed down a wide corridor. She had no reason to trust him, but, desperate, she lurched to her feet and ran. A soft, white glow illuminated the opposite end of the hallway, and it emptied into another massive chamber, this room filled with the horrifying swirl of frozen winds, its doorway to the outside world slightly ajar.

The bitter wind brought furious tears that stung her eyes. She had been kidding herself, should have known better. She had thought they were in Egypt. Apocalypse's temples, at least the ones the X-Men had been able to find, had been located squarely in the mutant's homeland. The view that greeted her, instead of an endless stretch of desert dunes baked by the sun, was one of impossible mountain peaks and the glittering white whirl of a blizzard. Lucky her, this shrine appeared to be built in one of the most inhospitable corners of the planet. She would never make it out of there alive, but maybe, she thought, that would be for the best. Her feet carried her forward, and the realization dawned on her that no matter what the cost, she wouldn't allow Vargas to use her for his pawn anymore. She had hurt too many of her friends, and would see no more blood on her hands. She would end this on her terms.

Resigned, she trudged out of the chamber and into the blinding snowstorm that raged beyond. It was cold beyond all measure, the pain like nothing she had ever felt, and the winds sliced at her skin like the blade of a knife. She was losing feeling in her limbs too quickly, but she dug in and by sheer force of will churned her legs onward through the thigh deep snow. Ice clung to her now frozen curls and encrusted her shirt, but the pain was gone. Losing all sensation in her toes and fingers, the numbness spread up her body at an alarming rate. When her legs wouldn't obey her anymore, she pitched forward into the frozen white, her last thoughts of Remy before the ice stole over her slowing heart.


	8. Chapter 8

All characters owned by Marvel Comics

Author's notes: All right kids, this story is mature for a reason, just remember that this chapter!

Our rescue squad starts to put the pieces together, if they can keep from killing each other that is, and if Remy can keep his sh*t together. (Ishandahalf, that reluctance starts to rear its head, and its not entirely our boy's fault).

Thanks as always, and enjoy!

* * *

 **Chapter Eight**

Vargas, his superhuman physique unaffected by trivial things such as temperature, found Rogue's frozen body before the snow even had a chance to cover her. He kneeled and pulled her to his chest, barking into a small communicator on his wrist.

 _"Porter!"_

In a heartbeat Vanisher popped nearly on top of them, and Vargas stood, cradling the block of ice in his arms.

"Somewhere equatorial," the imposing man ordered. "Now!"

Another heartbeat and they were on a tropical beach, the sultry sun lazy and red in the sky, a crash of turquoise waves rolling over the edges of the sand.

"Oh, fuck!" Vanisher stared at the freezer burned Rogue when Vargas withdrew her from his embrace. "Is she dead? 'Cause she fucking looks dead!"

Vargas stared menacingly at his excitable companion and laid Rogue's body onto the warm beach. He wanted to strike the man again, to blame someone, anyone for letting her escape, but the fault was his own. He had thought the remoteness of their base of operations would keep her prisoner, that there had been no need to guard her while Mesmero took the rest he required, but Vargas had forgotten the woman's stubborn tenacity. Leaning over the frosty crunch of flannel covering her chest, he detected a faint, sluggish pulse.

"She lives," he raised his head from her body, "but barely. If we had not found her so quickly…" He shook his head. "There may still be permanent damage." This could have been all for nothing, he thought bitterly. The MGH had given Mesmero back his hypnotic powers, but they were not all they had once been. The mutant needed to be in the vicinity and conscious to exert his influence, a dangerous requirement when you were dealing with a woman like Rogue.

Vanisher crouched next to him and lifted a lock of Rogue's hair, still frozen stiff despite the tropical temperature and blazing sun. "What if you turned her powers back on?" The withering glare Vargas gave him turned his bowels liquid, but Vanisher kept talking. "Not permanently, just for a few minutes. Between Wonderman's ionic whatever and the powers she robbed from Iceman and Storm, her body might put itself back together. Then, shut 'em back off before she regains consciousness."

Standing, Vargas stroked his chin with his thumb and forefinger. Much as he hated to admit such a possibility, Porter had a point. The weather witch, Storm, was supposedly immune to shifts in temperature, and Iceman lived and breathed his namesake. Combining those attributes with the invulnerability afforded her by Simon Williams' never-ending ions, she may survive this in one uninjured piece. They only real danger lay in her attempting to escape again or using any of the powers she had acquired against them, but he knew his reflexes were quicker than hers, and was certain he could turn her powers back off before she could even think to harm them. He removed the remote from the pocket of his dress shirt and deactivated the collection of dampeners decorating her wrists. Rogue's mishmash of powers proved Vanisher right in a matter of minutes, and her body slowly thawed and returned to its normal color and beyond, her pale skin flushing in the sultry heat.

" _Remy_ …" the woman murmured from the sand, "… _I need you…"_

Somewhere between a dream and the real world, Rogue stirred, her head thrown back, lips parted, as if in the middle of some erotic fantasy. The men watched, unable to tear their eyes away, captivated at the abrupt change in her condition.

 _"Remy…"_

"Whoa!" Vanisher fanned himself in the heat. "Told you! She looks fine, better than fine, damn near orgasmic!"

Vargas rolled his eyes in irritation. "Really, Teleford, must everything be about…"

Quicker than Vargas ever imagined, those fiery green eyes snapped open, and Rogue lunged for Vanisher, but Vargas was faster still and activated the dampeners the split second breath before her bare skin slapped onto the gangly mutant's face.

Vanisher laughed unsteadily and grasped her fingers, bringing them to his lips where he kissed them with an exaggerated smack. "Sorry, babe, you were _so_ close!" Still holding her hand, Vanisher lightly touched the sleeve of Vargas's jacket and the trio disappeared.

* * *

 _"Remy…I need you…"_

It was a dream, her body against his, it had to be. It had been so long since they had been together, and Remy almost held his breath in anticipation of something so perfect becoming another nightmare, but before long he was breathless, moaning, lost in the feel of soft skin, so much skin, miles and miles of it tangled together, pressed against him, the fiery trails of his fingertips tracing the outline of her curves and burning them into his memory. His blood rushed from his ears to other places so suddenly he couldn't think straight, lost in the sighs of pleasure of the woman astride him, the arch of her back as he entered her. He felt her tightening around him, her eyes closed, lips parted, and he joined her, their bodies melting together as one. If it was a dream, he didn't want to wake up.

" _Remy_ ," Anna breathed, her beautiful eyes opened wide in astonishment as if she had just realized he was beneath her.

He reached his hands towards hers, but when their fingers knotted together, he felt something shift low down and deep inside him, his mind overran with a rapid fire of images that shattered his mental defenses. It _was_ a dream, he knew that now, but in his mind he felt her, he swore it, the _real_ her, warm and familiar, full of love and life and joy. Somehow Rogue was the source of the vision, and her presence desperately burrowed mental fingers into his brain while the images flowed between them. He gasped and tried to follow what he saw rushing before him, but it was trying to hold onto a raft in a raging river. Rogue, Vargas, and every mutant she had been forced to absorb jerked past like the flicker of an old filmstrip. The harder he tried to focus, the quicker each picture disappeared. Lorna's house, Magneto's lair, a white sandy beach, a snowy park bench, he wanted to scream, to stop the madness, he was drowning, but when the flickers moved to a blizzard ravaged mountain top and the yawning darkness of an ancient, yet hauntingly familiar chamber, the carved images decorating the stone walls pulled straight from his worst nightmares, the grip of her mind on his suddenly released, a plant yanked out of the dirt by its roots. It was over as suddenly as it had began, and Remy jolted himself awake.

"Pleasant dreams?"

He was a panting, sweaty mess, his heart jackhammering its way out of his throat, and could only glare murderously at Mystique before he flopped backwards onto the couch and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes.

Shiro and Lorna were still at the hospital. They had checked on them, but Raven had been right when she said there wasn't much more they could do for Shiro. He would be fine when he regained consciousness, a cast on his arm his only New York City souvenir. Lorna had volunteered to keep watch as she was, in her words 'going bat shit crazy' in Remy's apartment.

Fence had been as excited by their idea about Cerebro as they had been, but had shooed them out when they hadn't been able to stop hovering over his broad shoulders.

"Let a man work!" Fence had bellowed, and sent them packing with promises that he'd call as soon as he fed the last few days of Cerebro's records into his computers.

They had left, grudgingly, and after eating an awkwardly silent meal, they had retired to separate quarters for the night, Raven again taking his bed, Remy tossing and turning on the couch. He knew he must have slept, the dream was still so vivid, as realistic as his recent unsettling nightmares of Death, but it had only been in his mind. He tried to process the strange images that had flashed before him, but couldn't get past the sight of Anna, or the feel of her, it had all been so real, like she had been right here, riding him on the sofa…

"My, my, my," Raven chuckled from where she rested her arms on the back of the couch. "I'm beginning to see what my daughter sees in you, LeBeau."

Pulling his hands away, he followed her smiling eyes to the circus tent he was pitching under the thin blanket. Her blue-skinned fingers rambled down and caught the edge of the fabric, tugging at it. He snatched her wrist and twisted it away.

"Not in a million years, Raven," he growled, but she laughed.

"Now, that's not what you said last time, _sugah_."

His stomach clenched. In the worst of many attempts to separate Remy and Anna, Raven, wearing Rogue's face, had offered her body to Gambit. At the time, Rogue hadn't been able to control her mutant powers, and the sexual tension between the couple had been driving them both crazy. Raven, as a test of loyalty or as a sadistically genuine offer, Remy never found out which, had shifted into the shape of her foster daughter and tried to seduce him, presenting herself as a way for Remy to release some of that tension, and to his shame, he had almost taken her up on it. He and Anna had been such a mess, and there she had been standing in front of him, the woman he loved, his fantasy come to life, a cure for the constant case of blue balls he had suffered during those years. He hadn't given in, but the sick memory still brought shame to him when he remembered how close he had been, shame and a fury that shook him to his bones.

"Enough." He tightened his grip on Raven's wrist, and she watched in disappointment as the circus left town. His red on black eyes bored into her with lethal intent and she had enough sense to look abashed. Remy dropped her arm and stood, wrapping the blanket around his trim waist. "Call Fence. We need to figure out our next move."

When he stomped towards the bathroom and slammed the bedroom door, a wave of dizziness turned his world on its axis, and he had to grab the edge of his dresser before he fell on his ass. Standing there, panting until everything righted itself, Remy tried to stop himself from shaking to pieces. Of all the fucking times to be sick! Was the stress of the last few days finally catching up to him? He never got sick! What the hell was happening?

Another wave rolled over him, accompanied this time by an icy shiver, dark, cold, familiar, the feeling of waking in your grave after you were three days dead, the sensation straight out of his worst dreams. The last time he had felt that sickening quiver crawl up his skin had been on Utopia, and he had prayed it was the last. Mon dieu, he thought, _le morte_ … _Death_ …Gritting his teeth, Remy screamed at himself to pull it together. He couldn't let it happen, not now! It was just because of the dream, because of his nightmares, because of what Rogue had shown him! He was just being paranoid, worn down, tired. He hadn't let the monster deep inside take control of him for months, and he wouldn't let it happen now, not when Rogue needed him.

"We need to finish this," he whispered to himself through clenched teeth and held on through another tremor.

But what if he couldn't? What if when Rogue needed him the most, Remy LeBeau was gone, replaced by the creature Apocalypse had left in his place?

* * *

"I'm sorry, Remy, but whatever's going on with your girl is making it impossible for Cerebro to track her."

Fence handed his friend a cup of coffee and a plated cupcake resting on a doily, turning and offering Raven the same before settling his hulking body into an office chair that groaned in protest.

Even sugary pink sprinkles couldn't help Remy hide his distress, and he was still too nauseated to do more than just pick at the treat, the dizziness from earlier still flipping him every which way. Despite his growing anxiety about his own mind and body, he had thought they had finally caught a break when it came to Rogue. Learning where Anna had been forced to strike when she attacked Shiro should have gotten them a scanner glimpse of her they could then use to track her, but Fence was torpedoing their theory.

Peeling the parchment paper form her own cupcake and tearing off a gooey hunk, Raven's face fell. "Another dead end," she mumbled through a mouthful.

Remy wanted to scream. Vargas had Anna, and there still wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. After everything that had happened, they were still no closer to finding her. It had been four days since Captain America had called him, and she had been in the bastard's clutches for almost a week all told. It didn't make any sense, Rogue's absorption powers couldn't hold abilities that long. Whatever Vargas had been planning, it must already in motion, but a miserable Remy had no way to stop the son of a bitch, and if he lost control of himself, there would be no one left to help Anna. It wouldn't happen, he breathed deep, it was all in his imagination.

Fence reached over and snatched a piece of Raven's ravaged cupcake. "You didn't let me finish, sweetheart," he grinned at the huffy scowl she gave him and Remy again wondered how well the two of them knew each other. There were few people the terrorist Mystique let handle her cupcakes. "It may not be able to track Rogue, either because of her ionic abilities or the overload of mutant powers being shoved down her throat, but it's doing a damn fine job finding Waldo."

Shaking the cobwebs from his mind, Remy sat up a little straighter. A slight smile spread across his face when he remembered the teleporter's ridiculous stocking hat.

"Waldo?" Mystique stood and liberated another cupcake from a pink cardboard box.

"Vanisher!" Remy replied with as much excitement as he could muster.

"Bingo! Give this man another cupcake!" Fence winked at Raven, who tossed a sticky German chocolate towards Remy. He caught it frosting side up and stuck his tongue out at her when she stood behind Fence's chair.

"Show us."

With a few keystrokes, Fence pulled up the timestamped scans he had downloaded from Forge's toy. The tattooed face of the scrawny teleporting mutant popped up on the map, hovering over a red dot outside Remy's apartment building.

"How did Cerebro not have Vanisher's bio-signature on file? He's been around the X-Men's block a few times."

Fence pointed at the screen. "It actually did, we just didn't know where to look for him and I needed time to learn the software. There's not as many mutants left, but still enough around the globe that popping each file was gonna take us some time, and when Rogue attacked those X-Men while we watched, they all disappeared too fast for us to spot him. I figured out how to search specifically for him, and programmed the computer to follow his movements going forward as well as backtrack his whereabouts for the last couple weeks. I'm hoping it'll show us where they have your girl."

Their eyes glued to the wall of screens, they began the slow, painstaking process of analyzing weeks of footage. During Shiro's attack, they spotted Sunfire, Lorna, Vanisher, and Mesmero, along with an anomaly. Humans showed up as faint white lights, mutants more vibrant red, but this dot was so dark it looked black, and as they watched, the color blurred and melted, shifting its tone like a lava lamp.

"Is that… _Rogue_?" Remy breathed.

Nodding, Fence, cued up another sequence starring Vanisher. "I think so, and looking at the scans, I think I know why this thing can't track her. Her mutant signature is in a major state of flux, so much so that Cerebro doesn't know what the hell it's looking at, or looking for! Here, check this out from yesterday, after you guys bailed."

The next snippet showed Vanisher and Mesmero again, as well as Ororo, Bobby, and their young charge. Storm and Iceman were circling around another fluctuating dot, this time a tie-dyed purple.

"It can't find her because she's different every time."

Remy leaned forward and rested his elbows wearily on his knees, hiding another wave of nausea from his colleagues. "But Vanisher ain't."

It took hours, but they managed to pinpoint all of the attacks and sightings of Anna, and Remy sighed inwardly in relief. She had been forced to hit a half dozen powerful mutants, but it appeared that Lorna had been wrong when she had suggested the possibility of more. Still, six of their friends and allies was enough.

"Hold it!" The force of Raven's voice nearly knocked Remy out of his chair. "Play that sequence again, the last three jumps."

Fence rewound the footage and the trio leaned forward. Vanisher's dot popped into view in some mountain range, near a brilliant white light, brighter than what they had figured out were humans, and that beautiful, strange lava light, its own luminescence sputtering, then nearly snuffing out. Vanisher teleported, dragging the other two dots with him.

"Where…?" Something about the location clawed at the back of Remy's mind, but he was thinking too slowly, and before the question even formed, the three dots reappeared on the other side of the globe. The white dot still blazed, but Rogue's flickered ominously before tripling in size, flaring a brilliant, solid red, then just as suddenly receding to its original shifting appearance. All three disappeared again and had yet to reappear, though the timestamp was hours ago.

"Where the hell did they go?" Fence muttered and started tapping keys like the machines were malfunctioning.

"Vanisher can't have just disappeared!" Remy shouted, and Raven gave him a reproachful stare. "Well," he sputtered, "of course he disappeared, that's what the asshole does, but he's gotta reappear, right?"

Rubbing her eyes, Raven sighed. "Yeah, you're right. He has to land somewhere. So what does that mean?"

"Maybe they have a cloaking device," Fence said over his shoulder without looking at either of them. Raven and Remy's startled eyes met and she shook John's shoulder.

"What? Say that again."

"Y'know, like the Romulans on Star Trek. I mean, maybe not on them personally or they'd use it all the time, but their base could be cloaked or shielded from scans, hidden somewhere weird…"

That hope flared briefly in Remy's chest. "Merde, that's it! Fence, you're a genius!"

"You brilliant, brilliant teddy bear!" Raven hugged the computer whiz from behind and dropped a kiss on the side of his neck.

Fence blushed and waved at the screens. "If we compile a list of where Vanisher appears, there might be a pattern, we still might be able to extrapolate the location of their base."

The nagging thought dug its claws into Remy again. "Sounds like a plan, mon ami, but go back again. I want another look at those last sequences."

"Don't worry," Fence kept his back turned, "the computer'll look at all of them. We could probably use a break."

"John." Remy's use of his given name caught the man's attention "Humor me. Replay those last jumps. _Please_."

Raven swung narrowed yellow eyes towards him. "What are you thinking, LeBeau?"

His eyes were glued to the very last sequence, its location some remote tropical island in the Pacific. "Just give me a minute," he murmured. "Play it forward."

What were they looking at here? The dot he could only assume represented Rogue went from fading away to flaring hot, then cooling again before it winked out. She was with Vanisher, and one other dot, the bright white one, but not Mesmero. Another shiver ran its way down Remy's back in an icy slide. The hypnotist had been nowhere near her. Had Anna's mind been her own?

The timestamp…he pointed at the clock in the corner of the screen. "Local time?" he asked and Fence nodded.

"Yeah, here, I know your love of math, I'll change the setting so ours is shown under it."

Remy's eyes bulged from his head. The bright flaring of the Rogue dot coincided with his disturbingly vivid dream of her. Had she somehow…reached out to him? Had their connection been more real than he had even imagined? Anna had absorbed Jean Grey's powers. If she had been desperate enough, could she have made contact telepathically? He shuffled mentally through the dream's imagery, but nothing made sense.

"Go back one more."

The location of the jump prior to the tropical island ripped Remy's heart from his chest, and the dominoes of understanding toppled in his brain.

"Tibet…?" he croaked.

The blizzard, the mountain peaks, the ancient stone chambers with their familiar architecture. He started wheezing, suddenly short of breath. Was he grasping for straws, or could it be true?

Across the gulf of miles, had Anna somehow shown him the inside of one of Apocalypse's temples?


	9. Chapter 9

All characters owned by Marvel Comics

Author's notes: Phew! Kind of a longer chapter this week! It may seem like I'm wrapping things up here, but we haven't even reached the halfway point yet. After this chapter, things will start to shift gears a bit. Enjoy and thanks for your reviews!

* * *

 **Chapter Nine**

A tall, thin shadow passed in front of the torch light that spilled from the corridor, and Vargas inclined his head, but did not turn around.

"She's awake." Vanisher crossed his arms over his anemic chest and leaned against the more substantial stones framing the doorway.

"And?"

The skinny man grinned. "We're ready whenever you are."

A slow smile spread over the larger man's face. "Bring her to me," he commanded, and listened to the implosion of air that was Vanisher's calling card. It was nearly finished, but he could not get ahead of himself, there were still preparations to be made. The chamber had been completed, and Vargas himself had been born ready, but his long fingers flew across the machine's strange keyboard, finalizing last minute details.

He would be vulnerable until the transfer of ionic infused mutant energy was complete and his immortality assured. At first, he had thought it possible that Vanisher or Mesmero, if properly motivated, could stand watch over the process that would change him forever, but after the despicable night he had found them toying with the woman, he knew what needed to be done with them. Instead, he had programmed the machine itself to defend and assist him as he took his last steps towards forever.

Once he loaded Rogue into the compartment built to hold her, and Mesmero used his hypnotic charm to trigger the release of all the collected powers she had absorbed, she would be unable to escape the machine until the process was complete. At that point, he could dispose of Mesmero and Vanisher.

What to do with Rogue herself, of that he was unsure. The power dampeners would allow him to control her only for the short term as the woman was too resourceful and stubborn to take to captivity, and he could not stand the thought of keeping Mesmero alive and at his side for the long term. Strangely, he found he did not wish to merely slit the woman's throat, it seemed too final, too cowardly after all that had transpired between them. Perhaps another battle, just the two of them, to pit his newly immortal body against her theoretically limitless ionic abilities. The idea brought a surprising tightness to his groin. A battle then, he thought, and may it lead to something more.

Through checking the capsule meant for her, he stepped towards his own. When he had scrapped the original configuration of the temple's healing chamber, he had also shifted the positioning of Apocalypse's sarcophagus. Where it had once lay flat, it now stood upright. Its original intention was to heal a greatly depleted god, but Vargas was far from depleted and would greet his new reality standing tall like a man, not reclining like a simpering whelp.

There was the scrape of stone behind him and he turned to find Ozymandias entering the chamber.

"Impressive, is it not?" he asked the man of stone, but did not expect an answer in return. The ancient slave had gone about his business after their first few days in the temple, ignoring the men for the most part as he had continued pounding his pictures into the walls.

"As I always knew it would be," the being replied, "but actions cannot change a future set in stone."

Rage boiled to the surface of Vargas's skin, but his tirade was interrupted by Vanisher and Mesmero teleporting into the chamber, an immobilized Rogue supported between them. The woman was still in shambles after her battle with the Japanese mutant, her clothing torn and charred, and there was the dark smear of soot and smoke on the ivory skin of her face. His rage found convenient targets.

"What is the meaning of this?" Vargas's attention diverted, a smiling Ozymandias shuffled from the room, confident that things were falling into place as they should.

Mesmero backed away, but Vanisher threw Rogue to the floor at Vargas's feet. "Hey, I said she was awake, I didn't say she looked any better."

Vargas exhaled loudly and swallowed his fury. "Yes, of course. The end is drawing near, and with it your rewards." He gestured towards the pod on the right. "If you gentlemen would secure our guest?"

While they worked, he double checked his own space, and a giddy thrill traveled along every nerve.

Vanisher called out across the room. "She's good to go, boss."

Controlling his excitement, Vargas strode to them and examined the connections and computer panels inside and out. The machine of Apocalypse had truly been a gift. Rogue's hands were held over her head, her fists encased in unbreakable gauntlets that would absorb and channel the bulk of her energies. Once triggered, the process was self-replicating and would continue, draining her dry and feeding the collected energies to his waiting body.

Vargas tucked a stray, singed lock of white hair behind Rogue's ear. He had thought for a very long time that this woman would be the death of him, and it almost brought a smile to his face to think how wrong Destiny and her diaries had been. Just the ramblings of an old, blind woman. Perhaps he _would_ have a taste of her daughter, just to spite the cursed Irene Adler, before running Rogue through again with the broadsword he always kept within arm's reach.

Shutting and locking the shell, he took a deep breath and stepped into his own, and nodded at the waiting mutants. "Gentlemen, you have made this moment possible. Your rewards will be commensurate." He slipped off his dress shirt before they strapped him in. Within the manacles binding his hands more loosely than Rogue's, he felt for the extra control to the power dampeners he had hard-wired into the gauntlets. He positioned his fingers over the buttons before the men locked the door, and Vanisher waggled his eyebrows at Vargas through the small reinforced window.

Steeling himself, he called out to the machine and felt it respond to his voice. "Computer!" he boomed, "Execute task, authorization Vargas!" He pressed the button on the remote that held Rogue's powers at bay. "Mesmero, if you would be so kind?"

Triggering the woman's powers was the last thing he needed the green-skinned mutant for, and Vargas knew as soon as it was done. A jolt of energy rushed over his body like stepping into a pot of boiling water, and he heard an awakened Rogue scream in anguish, an anguish soon rivaled by his own. The pain was like nothing he had ever felt, a torrid froth of agony that bubbled over him in a million searing, stabbing pinpricks. He was surely melting, burning alive, how could he not be? Had he made a mistake? His brain was being ripped and stretched, his organs torn from his body and returned to him covered in broken glass. Rogue's tortured sobs continued, but before he lost himself, he felt for the buttons in the hand grips that cued his failsafe punishment.

"Goodbye, gentlemen," Vargas groaned, but pressed the controls and heard the answering screams of Vanisher and Mesmero as the volts of electricity surged through their bodies. Ignoring their cries, Vargas lost all sense of self, the ionically infused mutant energy flaring through the very core of his own being, changing him forever.

* * *

They were out of time. It was just Raven and Remy, no Avengers had even answered his damn phone calls. His finger had hovered over Ororo's contact, but he had thrown his phone down on a table in the bakery's kitchen, disgusted. He couldn't take Ororo's rejection again. When they had Anna, when she was safe in his arms, he would let Storm have it, but right now he couldn't afford to waste the energy.

Remy was sick to his stomach, sweating, but it wasn't his nerves. Something felt out of place inside him and he was having trouble snagging a deep breath, had to stop himself from clawing into his own skin. He was scared of what it could mean, especially after connecting the dots of his nightmares and Rogue's kidnapping to Apocalypse. What was happening to him? What had been done to him, to Lorna and Shiro, had never gone away, and now Vargas was mucking around with Apocalypse and one of his temples. Did the bastard know what he was doing? What forces he could set into motion? There was something there, at the back of Remy's brain, something alive but dead, something he desperately wished he could forget. He wanted to call Lorna to see how she and Shiro were, to see if they felt it, too, this strange… _awakening_ , but he knew Lorna would only want to come with them and he wasn't convinced of her stability, physically or mentally, and didn't need her becoming a liability, but what if Remy was the liability? They were in a hell of a jam. He wasn't sure he could count on Raven's mental stability either, but the woman would go to the wall for Rogue. If it earned Remy a slit throat, her help in rescuing her daughter would be worth it.

Raven thought he was full of shit with his absolute certainty that one of Apocalypse's hidden temples was Vargas's base of operations, and he knew she doubted that Rogue had reached for him in the night with borrowed telepathic powers, but after seeing Vanisher's location in the Himalayan mountains, after spending the last few hours choking down the taste of his own vomit, Remy had no doubt. If Vargas had been playing around with one of Apocalypse's ancient, alien machines over the last few weeks, it coincided with his, Lorna, and Shiro's nightmares. The darkness that now always resided in the depths of Remy's soul felt like it had gained some sort of handhold and was scrabbling its way to the surface, at least now he had a reason why. His supposedly deceased master was tugging on his chain, and the part of him that had served Apocalypse gleefully was dragging him down.

Remy growled and ran his hands through his hair. Fucking Vargas, messing with shit he didn't understand, but what the hell for?

He was in no shape to, but they had to leave, and soon. They had spent precious time gathering as much information as they could between Fence hacking files and Remy and Raven comparing notes, but there was still a big question mark on what exactly Vargas was hoping to accomplish. Even if Raven didn't exactly buy in to Remy's reasoning, she and her teleporting ring were willing to go with him to check known locations of Rogue, Vanisher, and Mesmero. Satellite photos were sketchy thanks to the constant blizzards and the interference of the world's tallest mountains. Unfortunately, they were going to have to teleport to the exact coordinates they had on the trio, which looked from the blurry sat photos to be in the middle of a snow pack, flanked by peaks. If the villain's base was hidden inside a mountain, they were going to have to figure out which one before they froze to death.

He had to gulp some bile again, and leaned over the table and breathed through his nose. _Fucking snow_. The frozen memory of near starvation in Magneto's Antarctic base barreled over him, but he shut it down. Rogue and the X-Men had left him there, seeming to die for his past crimes, but Anna had absorbed Remy's own guilt and self-loathing before she had made that choice, and he had forgiven her a long time ago. If only forgiving himself could have been so easy.

What he could recall of his time in another of Apocalypse's bases was difficult, his true self had been buried so far below the sick, evil blackness of the horsemen Death that he hardly remembered details of trivial things. What he did remember were the things tied with an emotional reaction, most vividly trying to kill Rogue with his bare hands. It was those sorts of things that still haunted him every day, not what the machines looked like or where they had slept for the nights under that monster's control.

However, he did remember the temple the X-Men had hit during the incident with The Twelve. That temple had contained one of Apocalypse's healing chambers, and twelve of the world's most powerful mutants had been used as gas to fill the villain's tank, resurrecting him with disastrous results, but Remy was sure that temple resembled the one Rogue had shown him in his dream.

Remy's first thought was that Vargas must be trying for another Apocalyptic resurrection, but that didn't make any sense. During the X-Men's previous encounters, Vargas had always proclaimed that he himself was heir to the human evolutionary throne, not mutants. As king of the hill, Vargas had wanted mutants dead, he would have had no interest in bringing the world's first back to life. Besides, by their count and the confirmation of Fence's computers, Anna had only snagged the powers of six of the world's remaining omega-level mutants. If Remy was remembering correctly, Vargas would need a lot more raw power to run a similar contraption, but run it for what? His head hurt with trying to puzzle it out. None of it would matter if they could steal Anna before the endgame, but what if Remy couldn't take it? What if he lost it, failed her, and gave into his worst nightmare?

"I've got a couple backpacks ready, you want to check them over for me?" Raven stepped into the kitchen and jabbed her thumb towards the walk-in cooler entrance to Fence's warehouse.

Once again, Remy could never repay the kindness his friend Fence had shown them. The man's work with the Cerebro unit and the long hours spent searching for Anna were beyond generous, but he was also giving them equipment to go after her. Insulated bodysuits and boots, cold weather gear, weapons, trackers, basic food and water, and medical supplies, Fence and Raven had been going through Rubbermaid tubs worth of gadgets and paring down to the essentials while Remy had sketched what he could remember from his dream. A lifetime spent memorizing blueprints and schematics to pull thieving jobs had given him a few tricks when it came to planning missions.

"Yeah, I'm coming." He took a step and the room spun, turning the world sideways before his eyes.

"Whoa, big boy!" Raven caught him, but he shrugged her off. She put her hands on her hips and narrowed those yellow eyes at him. "What the _hell_ is wrong with you?"

"I'm fine."

"Bullshit! You've hardly slept for days, you're pale, you're sweating…can you do this right now? You need to be on your A-game, and I refuse to babysit you. If you're too weak to handle something like this…"

"I'm fine. Anna _needs_ me. Ain't nothing more to discuss." His red on black eyes burned into her. "I'll check those packs and then we're gone. Understood?"

She looked ready to argue, but the expression on Remy's face shut down whatever she had thought needed to be said. He was right and she knew it. Anna was in danger, and they were all the hope she had.

* * *

"Ready, LeBeau?"

Remy tugged his stocking hat down and pulled the zipper of his borrowed parka higher. His stomach was still swimming and the strange prickling sensation that had been plowing over his skin had gone deeper, but it was now or never. He only hoped they could get to Anna before that son of a bitch Vargas could damage her any more permanently than he already had.

"As I'll ever be." He turned his face to Fence, who stood a few steps from them. There was the faint sheen of tears in the big man's eyes. "Mon ami, thank you for…"

Fence held up the paws he called hands. "Thank me by bringing that pretty girl of yours for a visit. Better yet, you could name your first born after me or something."

Raven snorted. "Nice try, John, but my first grandbaby is going to be a girl." Their earlier tension forgotten, she found Remy's gloved fingers in the cuff of his downy jacket and squeezed. "Let's go."

One second they were surrounded by the pleasant smell of baking cake, the next, an icy howl of wind pelted Remy, nearly knocking him off his feet. It was a white-out, though luckily it was daytime. He straightened his ski-goggles and sank hip deep into the snow, the bitter cold helping him focus. He grabbed Raven's elbow to help her stand. Huddling against each other, they stared at the mountains towering over them and reaching for the heavens, the peaks obscured by thick smoky clouds that blotted out the light and warmth of the sun. They had precious little time before they would freeze to death. If they didn't find the temple soon, they would have to teleport out and try again after they thawed.

Raven's face pressed into his neck just under his hat covered ear. "Which way?" she screamed and Remy's stomach twisted again.

Using the zoom function on his goggles, he took a slow look around them, wincing at the driving force of the snow that lashed the slivers of exposed skin on his face. Except for variations in shape, the mountains all looked the same, every direction a panoramic Lord of the Rings nightmare, but they could hardly just stand there and become mutant ice cubes, waiting for some neon arrow pointing towards the villain's hideout…

In a sudden blinding flash, the peak of one of the nearer, smaller mountains exploded, punched through the top by a thick beam of red light. The force of the blast hammered through the cloud bank and knocked them onto their backs in the snow. Remy felt himself slowly sinking and struggled to swim out of the powder, scrambling to a sitting position.

"Mon dieu," he muttered and his breath fogged up the outside of his lenses. He wiped them off with the back of his gloves and stared, open-mouthed at the sight before them. The mountaintop had been obliterated, and a whining, pulsing beam of angry energy stretched its way out of the crater.

Raven sat up from her own snow fort, grabbed ahold of the front of his jacket, and drug him out of his hole. High-stepping, they trudged as fast as they could towards the light. Sharp pains stabbed Remy's stomach and temples and he was sweating furiously beneath his parka. They were too late! Were they too late? God dammit! _Anna!_

Breathless, they found thick doors carved into the base of the mountain, shielded from the worst of the winds. Remy inspected the entrance and searched for a lock of any kind. When he didn't find one, he took off his gloves and shoved them into Raven's hands, then held his palms flat against the freezing seam that separated the doors. Wide-eyed behind her goggles, Raven backed away from him along the rocks, and despite everything, Remy chuckled to himself. She actually looked scared that he was gonna charge and blow the whole damned doors, but he had more finesse than that. With his powers, he felt along the alien metal panels and stone to the latches holding the doors closed, and charged only those pieces. When he stepped back to Raven, those latches blew in a flash of smoke and the doors yawned open. He bowed with an outstretched arm and gestured for her to go first, but could practically hear her eyes rolling in her head.

It took the two of them to push the heavy doors closed. The whining racket of the energy pouring from the mountaintop was amplified by the stone arches raising the temple, the sound itself almost a physical force that pushed on them, drowning them. They quickly shed their coats and Raven retrieved her guns from the backpacks. There was cotton in the first aid kit and Remy balled it up and shoved it into his ear canal, and offered some to Raven. It wasn't a great solution, but it would hopefully stop their ears from bleeding. Decks of cards were squirreled in the hidden pockets of his insulated black bodysuit, but he took the gun Raven offered him and checked its sights before he slid it into the holster strapped to his thigh.

Even if Anna hadn't shown him flashes of the temple, finding Rogue and Vargas wasn't going to be a problem, he and Raven just followed the sound and growing light through the twisted maze of corridors. As they grew closer, Remy's body quivered disturbingly like he was made of jelly, but he forced his legs to keep moving forward. Red light spilled from the end of their corridor and the noise ratcheted up significantly. They slunk along with their backs pressed to the walls, and at the end, a stealthy Raven peered through the entrance of a separate, blinding chamber, then stopped Remy's forward motion with a firm hand against his chest. He pulled his cards, and she held the same hand in front of his face with three fingers extended. She counted down to two fingers, then one, and when she made a fist on zero, they burst into the room, weapons ready, cards charged, but no one met their furious assault.

The massive room, what looked to be a healing chamber like the one from the X-Men's mission long ago, was hardly empty, but where Remy had remembered room for twelve omega-batteries, there were only two capsules, currently chugging like demonic washing machines on the spin cycle, connected to each other and an enormous bank of alien computers. Both capsules were enveloped in the dazzling glow of the energy that had punched through the mountain's peak, staring at them was like staring too long at an angry sun and Remy saw spots when he closed his aching eyes. The vibrato of noise emanating from the pods was whirring faster and faster, the earsplitting pitch rising, and it was everything Remy could do not to cover his ears and scream. Mystique swept the room with the barrel of her gun and Remy followed her on unsteady feet. They stepped over the unconscious and twitching bodies of Vanisher and Mesmero, their unseeing eyes twisting Remy's insides in a whole new direction. They looked to be alive, but only just, and Remy found he couldn't find it in him to give a fuck about the men who had tortured and kidnapped Rogue. Raven headed for the machine's control console and Remy lurched towards the capsule on the right, the brighter of the two pods. The light pouring from inside made it difficult to make out details, but through the small window he spied the limp Rogue dangling from the pod's ceiling.

"NO!" he bellowed and punched the window in a pointless waste of energy. "Anna! _Anna!"_ Running his fingers frantically all over the capsule's exterior, he found no locks he could pick, and his attempt to charge the material it was constructed out of failed, the panic rising thick in his throat "Shut it down!" he screamed over his shoulder, unable to tear his eyes from the lifeless face of his love.

"I'm trying!" Mystique shrieked over the din. "I can't!"

He forced himself to the other capsule. Inside, the light was just as blazing, but Remy could make out the warped and melted features of what appeared to be Vargas. "Mother fucker!" Enraged, Remy slapped his hands against the outside of the capsule. As soon as he made contact, his body felt like it exploded, and he was seized with the burning agony he had been barely holding at bay since they had stepped foot inside Apocalypse's temple. It was as if a screaming knife had plunged straight through his chest, as if his brain had been ripped down the middle or he had been flash fried alive, but it wasn't the first time his body had felt such torture. The pain was familiar, a pain of change, of chaos, of losing himself to the monster. He screamed and dropped to his knees, but Raven was on him in an instant, hauling him upright.

"What the fuck? What happened? Are you hurt!?" She screeched right into his throbbing ear, but he couldn't form words to answer her. How could he explain to her that Death was tearing him apart?

The pods wailed and sparked ominously, and Raven got ahold of him under his armpits. "I fucking hate you!" she hissed and drug him back towards the corridor, throwing them both through the entrance just as the capsules exploded.

* * *

"LeBeau! _LeBeau!"_

Raven heaved chunks of stone off of his back. He was buried for sure, but not only his body. It was the winding, writhing pain of the snake slithering its way along his spine that frightened him more, and he was barely hanging on to himself. His ears still rang with the memory of the now absent explosive whine, and he could feel the icy touch of the outside blizzard swirling through the corridor.

She hauled him back to his feet and he forced himself not to double over, to not give in to the madness that was tumbling down his body in building waves. With bleary eyes, he quickly tallied the damage. Both capsules had exploded and taken the back wall of the chamber with them, and the temple was now open to the raging mountain range beyond. Smoking shrapnel and hunks of rubble littered the floor, the pods themselves split open like ripe fruit. Raven dropped Remy when she spotted auburn hair spilling from beneath the sizzling metallic debris, and he fell to his knees.

"Anna!" Mystique pawed frantically through the pieces. "LeBeau! Get off your worthless ass and help me!"

He couldn't. He pitched forward and retched onto the filthy rock floor, and over Raven's desperate pleas a new sound touched his ears. Laughter, cold, dead, triumphant. Forcing his chin up, Remy lost all control of himself as the creature once known as Vargas emerged from the wreckage of his capsule. The man had always been a behemoth, but he was now taller, wider, his skin a pale powdered blue. His malevolent grin was outlined with the dark stripes of Apocalypse's lips, and the tawny eyes that met Remy's burned straight through to that leash around his soul and yanked. Apocalypse's machines always did their master's bidding, as did everyone he had ever possessed, and the computer appeared to have again fulfilled its prime directive, _resurrection._

The pain rolled over Remy again and he felt the change coming, but cast one last fleeting glimpse to where Raven stared at him, horrified, his beautiful but battered Anna alive and balanced against her mother's hip.

"Remy!" Rogue screamed, but Raven raised a hand, and with sad eyes and a burst of her ring, the women disappeared.

* * *

Mother and daughter popped into Fence's warehouse, Rogue plunging to the floor in a furious heap.

"Remy! _Remy!_ "

A startled Fence stared at them for two seconds before grabbing a first aid kit from a nearby shelf.

"Calm down, Anna, you're safe." Mystique crouched next to her with soothing hands and words, but Rogue wasn't having any of it. She was filthy, hurt, and angry, but adrenaline and Simon's powers were fueling her like a thousand Red Bulls, though she didn't want to think of what would happen when she crashed.

"You _left_ him?" she snatched Raven's wrists furiously. She didn't even need to ask the question out loud, of course Raven had left Remy behind. The shiny flash of the teleportation ring circling the outside of Mystique's glove caught Rogue's attention and she wiggled her thumbs underneath the fabric of her mother's costume and pulled hard with her own powers, meaning it to hurt. "You may have left him behind, but I won't! Not ever again!"

Raven's eyes bulged from her head and she slumped forward, and Rogue snatched the ring for herself, using her mother's mind to reverse the last jump. "Here!" she shoved Raven's limp body at Fence and teleported, falling back onto the still smoking ruins of her torture chamber.

The monstrous Vargas-Apocalypse hybrid stood towering over a wildly thrashing Remy, whose hair was bleaching to a pale white, his skin darkening to match his pitch black costume. Remy was transforming, but he still looked to be fighting the change. How the hell was she going to take Vargas down? Rogue was wrecked and didn't know how she was still standing, but if felt good to have control of her own body again. Besides her own and Simon's, she had her mother's, but the rest of the powers she had been forced to absorb were gone. Vargas had been right about one thing, Wonderman's ionic abilities were like the Energizer bunny. Even after those machines had drained the ever lovin' life out of her, she felt revived. She hoped it would be enough to save them.

Vargas kicked Remy in the stomach and sent him sprawling, and Rogue leapt free of her cracked egg of a pod.

"Hey!" she yelled over the roar of the blizzard, and the creature turned to her, those freakish lips of his pulling his face into a ghoulish grin. "Where I come from, sugar, it's ladies first!"

Remy had curled into the fetal position and was clawing at his hair, struggling against Death with all of his strength. Her heart breaking, Rogue forced herself to ignore him for the moment and launched herself at Vargas, intending to slam him into the stone wall behind him, but at the last second, Vargas spun like a bull fighter and hammered her with his opposite fist. If she had been a normal woman, the blow would have shattered her spine, and as it was, the force crushed the stone floor beneath when she smashed against it. Rattled, she tried to raise herself up, but he grabbed her by the hair and tossed her against the wreckage of the machine's control console, and the edges banged into her already throbbing back. She fell to the floor in a slow slide and before she could make herself stand, the creature had his hands around her throat and forced her up and back against the machine, grating his hips greedily into hers. Her fingers closed over his and she tried to use her powers, but the touch of her skin took nothing from the monster, only a strange static electric buzz between them.

Vargas squeezed, bearing down with all of his weight. "When you see your beloved mother in hell," he sneered, "…tell her I said hello…" Those disgusting worm lips crushed against hers, and his thick, slithering tongue shoved its way into her mouth, probing, exploring. She gagged and struggled beneath him, trying desperately to escape the crushing circle of his arms, but she was suffocating under his mass, the world greying at the edges of her vision. She couldn't fight him for long. This bastard had used, tortured her, and now he was going to kill her, and worst of all, he was going to kill Remy and it was all her fault. She had failed, and Irene had been so wrong, but Rogue wouldn't die without seeing the man she loved one last time. Struggling, she twisted and managed to catch a glimpse beyond the edge of Vargas's shoulder, her heart skipping a beat. Somehow, Remy had staggered to his feet. His face was a strange, blotchy mixture of the dark and light, and his hair had returned to its normal color. In his hands was the giant broadsword Vargas had once skewered them with. Fighting unconsciousness, she bit down on the creature's lip, hard enough to draw blood.

Vargas roared and ripped his face away, releasing his hold on her throat. "You dare!?" His eyes flashed murderously and his fist connected with her face in a hot spatter of blood. She fell to the floor again, seeing stars, and he loomed over her. "This is your rightful place, _mutant_ , on your knees before your master! I am the true evolution of mankind, their destiny! You and your people are nothing!"

A handful of charged cards detonated across Vargas's bare back, and the creature snarled.

"Me and my people doin' just fine wit' out you, mon ami!"

When Vargas twisted towards him, Remy dropped to one knee and propelled the broadsword towards Rogue, sending it skittering across the stone floor. She caught it by the handle and thrust upwards, shoving the blade into Vargas's chest, and another shower of hot, salty blood rained down on Rogue. His eyes wide in shock, Vargas gurgled and clawed at the weapon, but she held it fast, and Remy was suddenly beside her, his hands next to hers on the hilt. He charged the blade, and the magenta glow climbed the metal. She shifted her hands to heft the sword from underneath and shoved with all of her might, the sucking thunk dropping a twitching Vargas to his knees.

Letting go of the handle and wiping the blood from her face with the tattered sleeve of her flannel, she frantically programmed the teleportation ring to the last coordinates. Her arm found Remy's waist, and he let go of the broadsword. The pair disappeared, leaving the charge to detonate.


	10. Chapter 10

All characters owned by Marvel Comics

Author's notes: This is another one of those pesky mature chapters, so be forewarned. Our heroes get a well deserved moment together, while our villain gets a break of a different kind.

Glad everybody seems excited to continue, in part two I tried to incorporate a few more current characters/situations. Things are far from over! Thanks again!

* * *

 **Chapter Ten**

The mutants had disappeared in a flash, but the altered Vargas barely noticed.

He had but seconds to remove the dangerously vibrating blade from where it was lodged in his chest, less than seconds, and he pushed his arms away and shoved on the hilt with all of his considerable might. With a roar and a squelch of blood it came free, and he dropped to his knees and heaved the kinetically charged sword as far away as he could manage. It exploded, and the blast threw him across the length of the chamber, the resulting rush of fire boiling over his skin.

While the temple of Apocalypse burned, Vargas landed with a great thud next to the still warm bodies of Vanisher and Mesmero. Coughing from the smoke slowly filling the chamber, he scowled at Teleford's carcass. Perhaps, he thought, feeling his own blood pour from the gaping wound in his chest, it had been premature to dispose of the teleporter. If there were still a chance, if his heart was still beating…? He reached over with his massive hand and felt for a pulse along the man's blistered skin, but when he made contact with Vanisher, his mind was flooded with images, sensations, an onslaught of memories that were not his own. Gasping, Vargas pulled his hand back and the images disappeared. Strange. Was he hallucinating, on the verge of death himself, or was it something more? Tentatively, he touched the body again, the flicker of the man faint but solid, and experienced the deluge of Vanisher once more before he broke contact.

A malevolent grin spread across the villain's face as he understood the unexpected gift she had given him. Vargas reached one hand for Vanisher, the other for the fading Mesmero, and this time held on, pulling everything that the villains had ever been into him.

" _Rogue,"_ Vargas spoke aloud to the woman no longer on the same continent. "I may owe you so much more than I could ever have imagined."

With a wink of newly acquired power, he disappeared.

* * *

Dr. Cecilia Reyes, a reluctant X-Man at best, emerged from Remy's bedroom and softly closed the door.

A battered Remy stood expectantly and Celia lightly touched his shoulder. "She'll be okay, Remy. She just needs to rest. She's been through a lot, but she's a tough girl."

He let out the breath he had been holding and Celia straightened her rimless glasses. "Doctor's orders apply to you, too, okay? Rest. "

He nodded. He knew they had come through by the skin of their teeth, but because of his love for Anna he had cheated Death, and that was all that mattered to him. He had controlled the monster inside him and stopped the transformation from happening, something he had never thought he could do, but Remy wasn't naïve enough to think that was the end of it. The monster was quiet for now, but he had thought too many times that he had seen the last of his demonic alter ego.

"Thank you, chere." His eyes trailed to the closed bedroom door and the woman he wanted to curl up next to.

Celia smiled ruefully. "Back on again, huh?" She didn't hide the disappointment in her voice.

For Remy, his relationship with the good doctor had always been comfortably stuck in the friend zone. Sure, a flirty, fun friend zone that included movie nights and foot rubs, but that was all it had ever been for him. For her…?

"Take care, Remy." Celia grabbed her jacket, and the senior citizen who had been rocking in the lazy-boy stood up.

"I'll walk with you, Dr. Reyes. They're expecting me back at headquarters." Steve Rogers held out a hand to Remy and shook it firmly. "Good work, son. She's lucky to have you."

"Thanks, Captain, but we both know that I'm the lucky one here."

That got a chuckle from the national treasure. "You tell her to take all the time she needs. She's earned it." He helped Celia into her jacket and held the door open for her. "And tell Mystique she's got until the end of the week, but then she needs to get out of my city."

They had passed on the job of cleaning up Apocalypse's temple to the Avengers, and a squad was currently sifting through the charred wreckage, searching for remains. It chilled Remy to the bone to think that maybe they hadn't finished Vargas off, but they would soon know for sure.

He had spoken with Lorna, and she and Shiro had similar, frightening resurgences of their Horsemen powers, though not nearly as transforming as Remy had experienced. His proximity to whatever Vargas had become had apparently sparked a further evolution, but now, there was just a strange emptiness inside him where Death had once waited. Lorna and Shiro were fine, but had been kept at the hospital for observation.

When the door closed, Raven popped out of the bedroom from where she had been keeping watch. "They're gone?"

Nodding, he ran a hand through his hair. "Neither one's really your biggest fan. Don't worry, Rogers said the truce stands, least 'til the end of the week."

Raven crossed her arms and regarded him cautiously. "And our truce?"

"Guess that depends on you, chere."

She exhaled loudly and wouldn't meet his eyes. "I…owe you. I can't ever repay you for what you've done. You were there for my daughter when she needed you the most…"

"So were you."

The sound of Rogue's voice startled them. Her still damp auburn curls, twisted through with her distinct stripe of white, were wild from sleep. She had showered and dressed in one of Remy's button-down shirts, and hugged the grey pin-striped fabric to her closely.

"Anna…"

Rogue held up a hand to quiet Mystique. "I…I need some time, Momma, to sort it all out."

Rave looked to be on the verge of tears, but they were almost happy tears. Remy couldn't remember the last time Anna had called her mother by anything other than her first or codename, and he took it as a good sign that things were possibly thawing between the two women, but then he wasn't sure that was a good thing. Whatever happened, it was their business, and he would support Anna in any decision that she made.

His eyes met Anna's and it felt like the world stopped spinning. Raven, bless her, got the hint.

"Take care, sweetheart." She held a hand to Rogue's bruised cheek and leaned in and kissed her softly. "We'll talk when you're ready." Stepping back, she fiddled with her teleportation ring. "LeBeau, I think I've had enough of you for a while."

He winked. "Likewise."

She was gone in a flash of light, leaving Anna and Remy alone for the first time in a very long time. They stared at each other across a seeming gulf of miles, and Remy couldn't find the words. His feelings had never been the question mark. They had ended things because she needed time, but then they still hadn't been able to stay out of each other's hair. Since he had met her, she was all he had wanted, and he had spent the last few years trying to convince her of his love. When they had last faced Vargas, they had both nearly died for the sake of that love. They were injured and exhausted, and history had almost repeated itself, but he had no earthly idea what was going on behind those big, green eyes of hers. He needn't have worried.

With a sob, she stumbled towards him. He caught her, and they wrapped their arms around each other and sank to the floor.

"Anna, Anna…"

Her tears were dampening the neck and shoulder of his t-shirt, and his own were blurring his view of the living room. He wanted to tell her that he loved her, to ask if she still loved him, but talking it out had never been her strong suit. She pulled back from his collar and crashed her lips against his feverishly. Her hands were in his hair, and his traced down her back and her thighs beneath the too short hem of his shirt. Heated kisses moved to his neck and he groaned, and she nipped his earlobe and tugged the bottom of his t-shirt up, sliding her fingers along his ribcage. He raised his arms to let her pull it off and they rocked against each other, twisting together as tightly as they could in a tangled heap of limbs. His hands moved under the dress shirt covering the swell of her hip, finding their way to the small of her back. Teeth grazed his collar bone and her fingers trailed possessively up the rippling plane of his abs, sending a shiver up the hardened length of him. One of her legs moved to the outside of his hips, and he could feel her excitement on his lap and the stiff pearls of her nipples pressed against his chest.

"Bed," he moaned when she swung the other leg around his waist, and he caught her bottom lip between his teeth and picked her up, her legs wrapped snugly around him.

He sent the buttons of his dress shirt flying and laid her back on his bed. She snagged the waist of his pajama pants with her toes and worked them down, and he slid off her panties, drinking in the sight of her. From the look on her face she was doing the same thing to him. Her half-lidded eyes, burning with desire, traveled down his chest and abs, coming to a stop on his throbbing erection. She bit her bottom lip and met Remy's eyes again, and he had to stop himself from ramming himself right into her. Instead, he leaned over her and she welcomed his body. So close, so wet, he couldn't resist anymore and pushed into her, rolling his hips in a slow, sensual rhythm, feeling her beneath him, her lips parted in absolute ecstasy. The pleasure built between them, and he hooked his arm under one of her knees, driving himself into her slick folds as deeply as he could. She arched her back, meeting his passion with each stroke. Her fingers dug into his muscular behind, pushing him further, faster, and he felt her clench around him. He held on, watching as she cried out and came, quivering beneath him, and he lost what little control he had left, grinding against her with everything he had, emptying himself completely.

He rolled onto his back, exhausted, spent, absolutely satisfied, both of them breathless, and he spun his face to hers. She had turned onto her side and was watching him while he caught his breath. He brought a hand to her cheek and brushed the back of his fingers along the smooth skin.

"I don't know what I would have done if I'd lost you," he murmured and she curled her fingers into his and held his hand still.

"I feel the same." He flopped on his side to face her and pressed his lips against hers in a slow, sweet kiss. "Remy, I want this again. You. Us. I…I don't want to live without you. I know the timing's lousy, but this isn't just because of what happened. I love you, and I want to be with you."

He kissed her again and, determined, got up from the bed. Rogue propped herself up on her elbow and her emerald eyes filled with tears. "Remy?" The question was sad, and he turned quickly back to her and dropped another kiss on her swollen lips.

"Hold on, Anna, something I've been meaning to give you, just gotta find where I put it."

She tucked the sheet under her arms and watched him rummage through the nightstand and closet, finally finding his prize in the pocket of one of his jackets. He came back to the bed with it burning white hot in the hands behind his back and Anna raised an eyebrow and laughed nervously.

"I don't want you to think this is because of what we just went through, either. Had this for a while, but there never seemed to be the right time." He bent down on one knee and produced a small box from behind his back, a diamond ring nestled inside. Anna's eyes widened and her mouth fell open in a small 'o'. "I know this ain't the most romantic way to do this, but wherever you are in this world, I want to know you comin' home to me." The tears were spilling down her cheeks and he had to clear his throat to get out his question, a very important one. "Anna Raven, I love you with all my heart and soul. Will you marry me?"

She sprang at him lips first and threaded her hands through his hair. "Yes Yes Yes," she said in between kisses.

He placed the rock on her finger and climbed back onto the bed and curled his arms around her again, pulling her onto his chest.

She held her hand out and admired the sparkling stone, vintage, easily three carats on a platinum band. "I love it. It's beautiful."

"So're you."

Kissing her again, he knew that, against doctor's orders, neither of them would be getting much sleep.

 **The End-Part One**


	11. Chapter 11

All characters owned by Marvel Comics

Author's notes: So here we go with part two. Sort of an early update, but next Wednesday I will be on vacation and unable to post anything, so sorry about that, this will have to hold you until then.

Another mature chapter this week, don't say I didn't warn you. Thanks again!

* * *

 **Exes - Part Two**

 **Chapter Eleven**

"Stop fidgeting," Lorna hissed. "You're not actually nervous, are you?"

Remy could only smile and tug at the bow tie trying its best to strangle him. "Course not."

"Then, _stop fidgeting_. God, you're like a kid on the last day before summer vacation." She swatted his hands away and smoothed his tie and the crisp lapels of his jacket. "You ready?"

His red on black eyes swept the room. "Laissez les bon temps roulez, cherie **.** " Let the good times roll…

He and Lorna stood in front of the crowd of fifty or so of his and Anna's friends, family, and colleagues. After so long, after so many wrong turns between them, he couldn't believe the day had finally arrived. Today, he would make Anna Raven his wife.

The couple had wanted to make it official as soon as they had both healed from their injuries, and had planned on sneaking down to New Orleans to elope, but when their friends had caught wind of their plans they had convinced them to have a small ceremony to celebrate their love with those who cared for them. It seemed like tempting fate, especially in their line of work, and part of him would feel so much better once the ceremony was over, but seeing everyone gathered together filled Remy's heart with pride. Besides, with so much misery and bad news these last few months, a joyous occasion was truly a blessing, and he knew, deep down, that the love of his life was a sucker for the fairytale.

Lorna had grudgingly agreed to be his best woman, mumbling something about always a bridesmaid, never a bride, and Bobby Drake was standing tall as Anna's man of honor. Bobby was also going to walk her down the aisle, though Remy knew who Rogue had really wanted to give her away, but Logan was gone. At least _their_ Logan.

Remy understood the empty ache Anna was feeling missing one of her best friends, and his gaze sought the bright white height of Ororo's mohawk in the crowd. Whenever he had imagined this day, Ororo Munroe was the friend Remy had always expected to stand at his side, but he was still too angry at her and at her casual dismissal of him when Rogue had been in danger. He hadn't been able to put his hurt feelings aside to ask her to be part of the ceremony, but Anna herself had brokered somewhat of a truce between Remy and Ororo.

"You'll never forgive yourself if she isn't there," Anna had said, and Remy, though still miffed, knew she was right. They had contacted X-Haven to relay their happy news, and had been pleasantly surprised to find the time-displaced Jean Grey with Ororo's people. The girl was now smiling at Remy from two seats down, but nothing had prepared Rogue and Gambit for who they had also found with Storm's team. Logan, another realities' version of him, was stuffed into a tuxedo and sandwiched between Ororo and Jean. The man, grey and grizzled, a good fifty years older than their Logan had ever been, caught Gambit's stare. Ororo hadn't told them much about this man, only that in the reality he had come from he had been the last surviving X-Man, whatever that meant. This Logan's eyes were an ocean of regret and sadness, haunted by everything he had seen and done.

Remy shivered and swallowed, still unsure if Logan's presence was a happy one or a bad omen, but one of the things he loved about Anna was her conviction, which most of the time manifested itself as a fierce stubbornness. She had taken one look at this familiar old man and there had been no question of his authenticity, though she hadn't been able to muster up enough courage to ask Logan if he would escort her down the aisle. Anna and their Logan had been close, but in the short time they had spent with this version, Remy noticed the man kept Rogue at arm's length, almost purposefully avoiding her, and Gambit hadn't been able to figure out why that was. From his seat, Logan bobbed his head and Remy managed a small smile back. Whoever he was, it was good to see his face again, and Remy hoped it made Anna happy.

The rest of the room was full of familiar faces, though more of Anna's people than his. Jean-Luc had called from New Orleans. Things between Remy and his father were still frigid after their last encounter and looked like they would stay that way for the foreseeable future, but Jean-Luc had sent his best along with a set of antique crystal goblets, purchased or pilfered, it was hard to tell which. Remy spotted Shiro and Fence sitting by each other, the bigger man already dabbing his eyes, real and cybernetic, with a hanky, and along with Pietro Maximoff, he and Lorna's former X-Factor teammate Quicksilver, that about did it for the groom's side. There were a lot of Avengers he didn't particularly care for, but he spotted Wade Wilson, the mercenary turned good guy Deadpool, dressed in his red and black costume with a tuxedo t-shirt over the top. Remy owed Wade a big thanks. Who knew Deadpool was into wedding planning? Wade, whose current fortune and fame allowed him to bankroll a squad of Avengers, had a huge soft spot for Rogue, and had jumped at the chance to help her. Remy's only requests for the big day had been that he got to oversee the menu and pick the band, and he would be forever grateful that his friend Shorty had been on tour in New York City and had been available to play for the day.

At the end of the aisle Raven appeared and gestured to him, then took a seat next to Fence. She and Anna had been patching things up slowly, but it was definitely still a work in progress.

Steve Rogers came up behind Remy and Lorna, and Remy turned and shook the old man's hand. "It's time, son." Captain America, and all the power vested in him, was officiating the wedding. Anna's foster brother Kurt would have been the ideal choice to oversee today's proceedings, but Nightcrawler was another conspicuous absence that tore at all their hearts. Raven's son had been killed right before Rogue's eyes, sacrificing himself to save her and the girl Hope Summers, but in the months since his miraculous resurrection, there had been no sign of him.

Remy took a deep breath and stepped to his place, and Lorna signaled Shorty to start the music. The man lifted his trombone and cued the band to begin a bride's march that had a decidedly New Orleans' flavor.

When Anna stepped into view, it all fell away, the people, the music, the nerves, the rest of the world became a blur. She was beautiful, she always was, but her dress was stunning, one of a kind, just like her. A column dress with an off the shoulder neckline, hand sewn lace over silk that hugged her curves until it spread into a glossy train. Her hair was pinned to one side and fell in loose ringlets over a bare shoulder. She was on Drake's arm, and Bobby was grinning as he led her forward. Remy met her emerald eyes, and Anna practically drug Bobby the rest of the short walk. Suddenly, she was there, right in front of Remy, ready to take their next step towards forever, together.

They had written their own vows, a riff on the traditional for better or worse, but Remy barely heard any of it, too lost in the feel of her gloveless hands beneath his. They had been through so much, come so far…

Lorna handed him the wedding band to slip over the diamond he had carried with him for years that now resided on Anna's finger, and Anna gave him a matching one.

"Ladies and gentlemen," A proud Rogers beamed, "May I present to you, Mr. and Mrs. LeBeau! Remy, you may kiss your bride."

With a wolfish grin, Remy snaked an arm around her waist and dipped her low, meeting her lips all the way down. The crowd erupted in cheers.

* * *

The face that stared back at him from the mirror was no longer his own, not entirely. His skin, once a deep olive, had taken on the bluish pallor of a drowning victim. He ran the tips of his fingers along a jaw that had broadened, tracing the now severely darkened outline of his lips. The eyes that met his gaze, though still the same shape, glowed the iridescent yellow of a cat's in the dimly lit bathroom. Vargas reached out and touched the smooth pane of the reflection. It seemed immortality had come at a high price.

 _"I could have told you that."_

Vargas started at the voice, heard not with his ears but in the depths of his mind. Over his shoulder, the ghostly figure of Vanisher leaned casually against the bathroom's marble wall and smirked.

Another figure, Mesmero, materialized nearby. _"You should have known better. When it comes to Apocalypse, there's always hell to pay."_

His fingers unconsciously grazed the bandaged wound on his chest where the wretched mutants had impaled him, and he contemplated the sink filled with wads of blood soaked gauze. It had been close, too close, and any lesser man would have perished instantly, but he had never been a lesser man. After draining the remaining life and mutant powers from his employees, he had fled the temple, his instincts driving him…home? Vargas looked around at the spacious room, familiar yet foreign at the same time. He could remember hiring contractors to build it, could remember choosing the brass fixtures that graced the counter in front of him, but the memories were foggy, a dream that had happened to someone else. Deep inside, the word 'home' also conjured desert sands and harsh, unforgiving winds, of times long since forgotten in a language he knew he had never spoken. What was happening to him?

 _"Haven't you figured it out, boss?"_ Vanisher smirked and Vargas could see through the flickering of Teleford's body to the room beyond. _"You got played."_

Shaking with rage, Vargas had to lean over the sink to stop himself from screaming. "What are you?" he whispered savagely. "A phantom? A ghost?"

 _"Neither,"_ Mesmero laughed. _"Both?"_

 _"Memories."_ Vanisher stepped closer to him and the two regarded each other in the mirror. _"Your memories now, thanks to the little present you got from the skunk hair."_

The blood drained from Vargas's face as understanding spilled over him cold. He shook his head in disbelief. "No…it cannot be…"

 _"'Fraid so, boss. Thanks to her, you're stuck with us, 'til death do us part."_

In the mirror, another face became visible in the shadows, larger, menacing, its dominant features an echo of Vargas's new reflection. Apocalypse's ghoulish grin replaced his own, and the ancient mutant reached a hand out to him.

 _"NO!"_

Vargas slammed a meaty fist into the mirror, and his punch sent jagged shards of glass flying.

When he raised his head, he was alone again, but he knew that he would never be truly alone again.

* * *

After a Cajun themed dinner and the obligatory smashing of the cake, a three-tiered marble confection that was one of Sugar Muffin Bakery's creations, the crowd mixed together for conversations over champagne flutes before the start of the dance. Much to Remy's dismay, he and Anna were pulled in different directions by well-wishers. She was currently hugging the bearded Colossus, Peter Rasputin, his sister Illyana waiting her turn, while Pietro was droning inanely in Remy's ear.

"Rogers was quite surprised when Rogue tendered her resignation. Was that her choice, LeBeau, or did you…"

Remy held up a hand to silence Pietro. "You know nobody in this world can make that woman do something she don't want to. Would you excuse me?" He stepped away from a sputtering Quicksilver, but felt his rudeness was more than justified. Wanting nothing more than to be next to Rogue, an inspiration hit Remy.

"Bonjour, mes amis," he nodded to the Rasputin siblings. "Can I borrow my lovely wife for a moment?" Winding an arm around the startled Anna, he steered her away from the Russians and into an empty hallway around the corner from the banquet hall, coming to a halt before the door of a broom closet. He swiftly picked the lock and pulled her inside and shut the door behind them.

"What are you up to, Swamp Rat?" she whispered, but he drew her against his chest and kissed her passionately amongst the hotel cleaning carts stocked with extra towels and Kleenex boxes.

He smiled against her lips. "Just thought, Mrs. LeBeau, you'd like to make it official?"

"You are so bad!" she hissed when he went for her neck, but Remy felt her reach over in the dark and lock the door. Her body molded against his like she was made for him, and his hands freely roamed over his favorite spots as their lips teased one another into a tizzy. The row of tiny pearl buttons lining the back of her dress proved to be an impossible task for the King of Thieves, and he groaned in frustration and buried his face in the swell of her cleavage. All he wanted was ten minutes, hell, the way they were worked up, he could probably get it done in five!

"Trouble, sugar?" Anna giggled and he nipped her collarbone in response. "Here, like this." She pushed him away and turned around, and between the two of them, they maneuvered her skirt up and over.

"Mon dieu," he moaned at the feel of her smooth skin and the silky lace of her lingerie, wishing for just a little light to admire the view.

"Re- _my_ …" she whimpered and arched her back, pleading. He wanted to tease her, loved when she begged him like that, but he knew they'd be missed soon, so he slid her panties down with one hand, undid his zipper with the other and buried himself inside of her. They both exhaled in a shudder the instant they joined. He had been aching for her all day and knew she must have felt the same, she was so wet and ready…after a few perfectly slippery thrusts he felt her brace herself against the wall in front of them and he drove himself into her as hard as he could, as fast as she could take…his wife…he could hardly believe it…he was losing it, he was going to go first, but he shifted his angle to slide against just the right spot and she cried out, stifling a scream against her arm. He felt her spasm around him, and they came together. When it was over, they leaned against each other and the wall to regain their footing.

"Consummated enough for you?" Anna asked breathlessly and he swatted her bare behind. They cleaned off and tried their best to straighten their wedding clothes in the dark, but Remy was sure they wouldn't fool anyone observant enough to notice they had been gone. He opened the door for his blushing bride, but when she stepped out she froze, wide-eyed. A fuming Logan stared at them from the end of the hallway, and turned in disgust to trudge up the stairs that led to the hotel's rooftop.

"Merde," Remy murmured and rubbed his hand across his jaw. There was no way this version of their friend hadn't just gotten a front row seat to their closet tryst thanks to his enhanced senses, but that still didn't warrant the look of death he had given them. "Anna, chere, I…" He saw her jaw clench and the red of her already flushed cheeks deepened.

"Go back to the reception, Remy. I'm gonna find out what the hell crawled up his behind."

Remy opened his mouth to protest, but knew he was beaten before he even began. When it came to Wolverine, Rogue always had the last say.


	12. Chapter 12

All characters owned by Marvel Comics

Author's notes: Music isn't something that can easily be included in a written story, but I slipped a little cameo in last chapter for a New Orleans' musician who I think would be one of Remy's favorites - Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews was playing the bridal march. If you don't already know who he is, check him out. Never thought I would get excited about trombone, but the guy is pretty awesome. My New Orleans' soundtrack for Remy would include the obvious Big Easy artists like Dr. John and Louis Armstrong, alongside Kermit Ruffins, the Rebirth Jazz Band, and a fantastic musician named Anders Osborne. Find a way to listen to the Anders Osborne song _My Old Heart._ Whenever I hear that song, I think of Remy taking a slow drag off a cigarette, tipping back a stiff drink.

Anyway, on with the story...Vargas gets his hands a little dirty...

* * *

 **Chapter Twelve**

She would have expected him to reprimand them, to joke about them not being able to keep their hands to themselves, but Rogue would never have expected the look of hatred this Logan had directed at them. She didn't know his story or where he came from, seemed no one really did, but she wanted answers, one way or another.

Rogue, Remy, Lorna, and Shiro had taken a trip to X-Haven, courtesy of Illyana, wanting the former Horsemen checked over by the more sophisticated medical equipment located at the school, but also to share the good news of Anna and Remy's engagement. What none of them had expected was to see Logan, Wolverine, alive, at least another version of him. She knew it wasn't their Logan, but Rogue had no words for what it had felt like to see the man who had been her friend, her family, her rock in troubled seas after so long. She had been lost these last few months without him, and though it had been hard to admit, his death had ripped her world to pieces. Unfortunately, the reunion hadn't been what she would have hoped for. It had been uncomfortable, even awkward. This Wolverine, older, hardened, had seemed at ease with everyone but her, refusing to meet her eyes and barely speaking to her. She knew he wasn't her friend, not really, and knew little else about him, only that something truly terrible had happened to this refugee from another reality. In the world this Logan came from, all the X-Men had died, but that didn't explain his strange behavior towards her. If it was painful to interact with the other X-Men because of what he had lost in his past, you would never know it. His detached, butthead attitude seemed to be directed exclusively towards her. Logan was downright friendly, even joking, with Remy and the others, but with Rogue, he had kept a frosty, silent distance. Had they not been friends where he came from? Did he hate her? The thought tore open wounds that hadn't yet healed.

She swung open the heavy door to the roof and swore at the train of her dress as she tried to maneuver it through the opening. Logan, standing at the edge with his back to her, lifted his chin.

"Wasn't looking for company," he barked over his shoulder.

 _"Tough."_ She slammed the door, intending to give this imposter wearing her friend's face a piece of her mind, but when he turned to finally face her, his expression was so grief stricken that her breath caught in her throat. It was the first time he had been able to meet her gaze, and the blue eyes that stared back at her through a heavily lined face were tortured with heartbreak and regret. Stepping towards him hesitantly, she held out a hand. "What is it, Logan? What's so horrible you can hardly look at me?"

Those eyes were gone again, he flicked them to his feet and she could see him quaking. She stepped right in front of him and hugged herself in the chill wind of early spring. Logan shouldered out of his jacket and reached around to drape it over her bare shoulders. The jacket smelled of him and his cigars, and she bit back the sudden sting of tears.

"Logan," she stared, her voice a hoarse whisper, but he rubbed his hands briskly along her upper arms to warm her.

"Hey, no tears, darlin'." He kept his hands on her and the two stood there in an awkward silence. "So," he murmured after a few heartbeats, "you and the Cajun, huh?"

The question surprised her. Since she had met Remy, despite a few painful detours, it had been her for him, him for her. The two belonged together and it was sad to think their love wasn't fated.

"Not where you come from?" she asked quietly.

Logan's jaw twitched, a look she recognized, a look her own had given her too many times when his stubborn ass had been keeping something from her.

"No. They tried, but never could fix whatever broke between 'em."

She wanted to ask more, to ask what had happened to this other her, to ask if anyone had ever loved her, but she couldn't get out the words. It was such a strange situation. How much had been the same? When had it become different? Where had they all gone wrong?

"Hey," he laid his rough palm on her cheek, solid and warm, and she couldn't stop the tears that rolled down to her chin. "Said no tears today, darlin', not for me, anyway. This is your weddin' day. You should be smilin'. Isn't somebody waitin' downstairs for a dance?"

Leaning into his touch, she forced a slight smile. "Was kinda hopin' you'd ask me."

"Me?" his grey eyebrows shot up to the matching hue of his wild hairline.

"You!" she laughed softly. "I don't know about where you come from, but here, I never would have made it to this day without you. Don't know if it was the same for you and…and…"

" _My_ Rogue?"

It was the phrase she had been thinking, but the way he said it, possessive, raw with emotions he rarely conveyed, sent a shiver travelling down her spine. His arms tensed, and he brought her to his chest. Her heart fluttered and skipped a beat, but Logan froze and released her, hastily stepping towards the door.

"Let's get ya back inside 'fore your husband comes lookin' for ya."

The confused tangle of feelings exploded inside her. "Goddammit, Logan, talk to me! What the hell is…?!" She choked on her words when Logan growled and popped his adamantium claws. Had she made a horrible mistake? This wasn't her Logan, had she said something wrong? Would he hurt her? She backed against the edge of the roof, ready to launch herself and fly away, but Logan suddenly stiffened and rose off the ground, his eyes wide in agony and his arms and legs thrown wide at awkward angles.

"Get outta here, darlin'!" he roared before an invisible force threw him hard against the brick wall of the building. He collapsed in a burly, silent heap.

"Hello, Anna."

Rogue whipped her head to the voice of Magneto, Erik Lehnsherr among other aliases, a man she had once convinced herself that she loved. Held aloft by his magnetic powers, he lowered himself softly to the rooftop. Dressed in a sharp civilian suit, he looked ready to attend her wedding reception. They hadn't invited her ex, this man that had contributed to her and Remy's last breakup. Remy had floated the idea past her, but in truth, she hadn't wanted Erik anywhere near them today. She had ended things with the man after Magneto had suggested they take their relationship to the next level, and the thought of him watching her and Remy exchange their vows churned her stomach. Her new husband certainly wasn't a jealous man, Remy knew Rogue loved him and he had nothing to worry about when it came to her former flames, but that didn't mean she had been entirely comfortable with the idea.

Speaking of former flames, Remy had even invited Rogue's teammate on the Unity Squad and her most recent ex, Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, with whom she had a brief fling. Johnny, along with a whole slew of heroes, was probably downstairs, getting tipsy on champagne and looking for the next superpowered notch on his bedpost, but Rogue didn't want this to turn into a fight with all hands on deck. Erik clearly had a reason for seeking her out and it wasn't just to toss Wolverine around.

"Was that necessary?" she huffed and crouched in a pile of lace and silk to check Logan's pulse.

Erik waved a hand dismissively. "I had thought dear Logan deceased and assumed you were in danger. Clearly I was mistaken. Forgive me for not being up on the most recent gossip." Erik was handsome and terribly charming when he wanted to be, but his arrogance was plain old ugly.

Rogue stood and faced him, trying her best to control her temper. "What do you want, Erik? I hope you didn't come just to crash the party."

For a second, the mutant messiah mask on his face slipped and she caught a glimpse of the loving, caring man she had pined for all those lonely months before she had met Remy. The moment passed and his smile was mostly a sneer.

"Surely my invitation was lost in the mail?"

That tore it, and she stalked towards Magneto. "If you think I'm gonna let you…"

He held his hands wide. "Anna, let me begin again. This is not how I envisioned this happening and the fault is my own."

"Oh? And just how did you see this going down?" She narrowed her eyes at him and put her hands on her hips.

"Do not worry, Anna, I did not come here to unburden my heart, nor do I harbor fantasies of spiriting you away from your groom on your wedding night. I merely wanted a glimpse of you, to see how you were after Vargas's attack, and to offer my assistance in tracking the villain down, should you require it."

Her blood ran colder than the air swirling between them. "Tracking him down? We killed Vargas, Erik."

The sneer broadened. "You mean, they have not _told_ you?"

The door flew open and Remy crashed through it, cards blazing, followed by Bobby, Raven, and Jean. Bobby and Jean lingered over Logan, and Remy stalked forward, but Raven sandwiched herself between Anna and Erik.

"Really, Erik? _Really?"_ Mystique shoved the reformed villain away from Rogue, and Remy wrapped an arm around his wife's waist, Bobby appearing protectively at her shoulder.

"She needs to know of the threat the creature poses." Erik levelled his stare at Gambit. Rogue felt every muscle of Remy's body shake with rage.

"You couldn't even give her one goddamned day?" Remy growled ferociously, and Rogue had to hold him back.

"Remy, please…Erik, what are you talking about? What have they not told me?"

Magneto started laughing, the sound hollow, emotionless. Mystique grabbed his arm and fiddled with her teleportation ring.

"Time to go, Erik. Love you, daughter."

"Erik!" Rogue pleaded, but Magneto merely smiled.

"Ask your husband," he mocked as the white light swallowed him.

* * *

"Is there anything to bloody drink in this bunker?"

Elisabeth Braddock, the Japanese by way of British telepathic/telekinetic ninja known as Psylocke, opened one cupboard door after another in search of alcoholic relief.

Monet St. Croix, the extremely talented and haughty young woman known simply as M, breezed into the galley of their underground headquarters and took a seat at the large table in the middle of the room, swinging her long, dark hair over one shoulder. "Sorry, darling, but I believe Victor beat you to the punch on the booze."

Psylocke swore and slammed the wooden door so hard it nearly came off its hinges. She hated this place, hated everything about it and everything about their new mission. All she had wanted was one night to get miserably shit-faced, to drown it all away…

"If you were looking to get tanked, you could have gone with Raven to the wedding, you know."

It was on the tip of Betsy's tongue to chastise M for reading her thoughts, but she let it go and clamped down her psi-shields even tighter. Monet was as formidable a telepath as Elisabeth, and had a terrible penchant for nosiness. "I wasn't exactly invited, luv," Elisabeth retorted. She and Rogue had been teammates if not quite friends over the years, but Elisabeth and Gambit had what couldn't even be called a love/hate relationship, it was at best a frigid understanding that neither party trusted the other further than they could throw them.

Monet smiled wickedly. "All the more reason to crash the party, don't you think? It's what Erik's doing."

Elisabeth felt a pang of sympathy for Rogue. No matter how much she loathed Gambit, she felt her Southern belle teammate, so long denied love and human contact thanks to her powers, deserved her shot at happily ever after, even if it was with Remy LeBeau. She wished Erik had been man enough to stay away and let Rogue enjoy her big day. If she and Warren ever got married, she would hate it if one of his old frames crashed the party. Elisabeth swallowed the tight feeling such thoughts brought to her chest. She and Warren. No matter how much she loved Warren Worthington III, she wasn't sure if there was anything recognizably human left inside the man. The real reason she had avoided the wedding of her teammates slapped her hard across the face. Elisabeth was jealous and heartbroken. The last thing she wanted to witness was a storybook wedding, and wished desperately Monet had enough good sense to change the subject.

Monet touched her lightly on the shoulder. "I've been saving a bottle of Cristal for a rainy day…I think I hear thunder." Elisabeth laid her hand over Monet's and squeezed. "You get the glasses ready, I'll be right back with the bubbly." The girl turned to head to her quarters when the lights winked out, bathing them in total blackness.

"Oh, bloody hell," Elisabeth cursed. It was bad enough to live in some hole in the Genoshan ground, but was it too much to ask to have running water and electricity? They weren't savages after all. Her eyes adjusted to the reddish glow of the backup generator's emergency beacons and Monet went for the exit.

"I'll check the lower levels and see if I can…"

The door burst open and Elisabeth's scream caught in her throat. The shadowy silhouette of Archangel, Warren, filled the entryway, and, faster than her eyes could follow, he hacked at Monet with his razor sharp wings. The supposedly invulnerable girl shrieked in surprise and dropped to the floor, cradling her abdomen, her pain and shock shunting harshly through Elisabeth's mental barriers. Psylocke shoved the girl's overwhelming agony away. She had to focus. Warren had lost control. What Elisabeth had feared for so long was coming to pass and she raged inside as she felt Monet's thoughts slipping, but knew what she had to do. Her psychic knife flashed to life and she lunged at Warren, but he stepped aside to reveal two glowing yellow eyes that burrowed their way into her soul.

"Hello, Elisabeth."

The familiar voice covered her like a warm, wet blanket, and all feeling left her body. Even as the monster moved towards Monet, there was nothing she could do to stop him.


	13. Chapter 13

All characters owned by Marvel Comics

Author's notes: I swear Couplest and Ishandahalf, you both must be able to read my mind at this point - in an upcoming chapter, Remy and Bobby try to name the Apocalypse-Vargas mashup and Vargpocalypse is on their short list. I tried coming up with some clever combo, but everything was ridiculous so I used the boys as a way to make fun of my efforts. I think its next chapter actually, so if anyone has any suggestions they don't mind me using, feel free to share!

We'll explore a little more of Old Man Logan's history as we go, so hopefully my use of him it isn't too confusing/boring for people who didn't read the series. I just really missed Logan and wanted him in my story. Sigh. When are they bringing him back? Don't answer that Marvel, I'm sure it will just piss me off.

So, anyway, that pesky Vargas is at it again this chapter as we return to Genosha. Hope you're enjoying it, and thanks as always for the reviews!

* * *

 **Chapter Thirteen**

They waited until most of the guests had left, especially the Avengers, Remy wanting their discussion to stay strictly in the family. He had assumed they couldn't get through the wedding without something ugly rearing its head, but he had hoped to keep this particular bit of bad news quiet just a while longer.

"Out with it, Cajun." Rogue, still wearing Logan's dinner jacket, crossed her arms over her angrily heaving chest. They were back down in the banquet hall, a group of them huddled together amongst the decorated but empty tables. Besides Anna and Remy, the X-Men remained: Ororo, Logan, Jean, Bobby, Lorna, Shiro, Peter, and Illyana. The news affected them all, but Remy had wanted to get through the wedding, to enjoy a little slice of happiness, before their world came crashing down around their ears, but he couldn't keep it quiet any longer.

Remy sighed in defeat and ran a hand through his hair. "Rogers came to me a couple days ago. Said the Avengers finished wit' their analysis of Apocalypse's temple."

Rogue's green eyes went wide and she visibly paled. Bobby, still in man of honor mode, pulled out a chair for her and she thudded into the seat. "And?" she whispered, and Remy could see she was scared, but also furious, probably at him for not telling her all this sooner, but he would face her wrath any day of the week for trying to give her the perfect day she had always dreamed of.

He cleared his throat and crouched in front of her, finding her cold hands in the cuffs of Logan's jacket. "The chamber had been blown wide open to the elements, and the winds had done a lot more damage, but forensics only found two bodies, not a third."

"Oh, no!" Lorna gasped, but Shiro shushed her.

"Let him speak!" The Japanese mutant rebuked her affectionately, but Remy could only focus on the hands he held in his, deceivingly delicate, capable of bending steel but trembling.

"They were able to ID the bodies, and the remains were Vanisher and Mesmero. There was a lot of blood on the scene that belonged to a third individual, and they're still analyzing it, but…"

Her hardened gaze met his. "Erik was right. The son of a bitch survived."

"I need a drink," Bobby mumbled and stood up from where he had been hunched over the back of Rogue's chair.

"Make it two," Lorna put her head in her hands and leaned her elbows on the table. Her green curls tumbled onto the white cloth.

"Perhaps you should bring the bottle, Robert."

Remy turned his chin to where Ororo stood behind Logan's chair.

"Somethin' strong," Logan grunted at the departing Iceman on his way to raid the remnants of the open bar. Logan loosened his necktie. "Who's this asshole we're talkin' about?"

"The villain's name is Vargas," Ororo replied. "We have fought before, only narrowly defeating him. He is not a mutant, but a wildly powerful human in his own right. Recently, he kidnapped Rogue and used her and her abilities to transform himself into something much, much more."

Remy bit his tongue to keep from chewing Ororo out. If she had helped him find Rogue when he had practically begged her, it was possible none of this would have even happened. He exhaled through his nostrils, in his heart knowing that if none of this had ever happened, he and Rogue may have still been avoiding each other instead of starting their life together, but the price paid had nearly been too high.

Logan's eyes were dark and dangerous and flew over Remy's to burn into Rogue. "He hurt you, darlin'?" Whatever had happened between them on the roof, the man wasn't avoiding Rogue anymore, and his voice, a gravelly chainsaw, tore apart Remy's insides.

Rogue flinched from Logan's gaze. "Couple'a times."

"That's all I need to know. Point me in the right direction and I'll take care of the rest."

"Now we're talking!" Bobby had wandered up with a bottle of whiskey, took a slug and passed it to Logan who took a long pull.

"It is hardly that simple!" Ororo snatched the bottle from Wolverine and slammed it down on the table. Lorna jumped. "Need I remind you again, Robert, of your responsibilities to the school and the mutants entrusted to our care?"

Remy couldn't believe his ears. He had barely reconciled with Ororo and here she was, cock-blocking their operation before they had even formulated a strategy. He stood, the anger rising in him, but Drake beat him to the punch and got in Storm's face.

"No, Ororo, I know where I stand and what's expected of me. Question is, do you?" His face twisted in disgust. "I thought I knew you, Storm, but you and Illyana kept me at X-Haven, against my will, while one of my best friends was in danger. You kidnapped me! How's that make you any better than Vargas? What would the Prof say about your ends justifying the means? What's gonna happen to me this time if I defy the goddess? Mind control? Some special little Limbo cave full of my worst nightmares?"

"Stop it." Rogue stood behind Remy and commanded everyone's attention. "You two could argue each other in circles 'til you're blue in the face, but I ain't got time for that." Her eyes trailed over the small group and Remy recognized the look. Recently, Rogue had taken to leadership as if born to the role, and had become known for her improvisational skills and deftness at putting together eclectic personalities to combat even crazier situations. He knew she was scrutinizing each mutant's strengths and weaknesses and what they could bring to the table, and Remy's heart sank. He had wanted to give them a shot, however brief, at a normal life, but they were going to be drug right into this mess.

"Chere," he turned to her, but she placed a hand on his cheek.

"I'm not mad at you, Remy. A little irritated, but not mad. I understand why you didn't want to tell me and I love you for it, but you gotta understand that our life together can never truly begin with this monster stalkin' us. How could we ever bring children into this world knowin' he's lurkin' in the shadows? It'll never be finished until he's finished."

Nodding, he exhaled in resignation and brought her hand to his lips. "Oui. I'm with you, mon amour, 'til death do us part."

There were tears in her eyes when she turned back to the group. "I know what I'm askin' here, and we won't think less of any of y'all who choose not to come with us, but I refuse to live in fear of that bastard. I'm goin' after him."

"I'm with you guys!" Bobby came towards them, glaring at Illyana and Ororo on his way around the table, and pulled Rogue into a tight embrace. "Nothing's stopping me this time!"

Remy knew before he even asked, but there was still a small part of him that hoped he was wrong. "Stormy?"

Ororo averted her gaze. "I cannot abandon the children. I am sorry."

"So'm I," Remy replied. He knew the Rasputins would join Ororo at the school, Illyana and her sorcery were the only things keeping the demons of Limbo at bay and Peter wouldn't abandon his sister, but Remy wasn't prepared for who else joined Ororo's party.

Lorna and Shiro stood next to Storm and a guilty Polaris pleaded for understanding. "Remy, I can't go after Vargas, not after what you said he's become. Just being near him changed you! I can't let that happen again!"

"And runnin' from him is gon' make it all go away?" Remy growled and she winced. "Shiro? Is this how a warrior acts?"

"Fuck 'em. Ya' got me, and that's more than you're gonna need." Logan ambled towards them and Anna launched herself into his arms. "All right, all right, cool it," the old man grumbled and patted her hair. Remy felt a strange pang of jealousy at the sudden bond between the two, who in this reality were strangers.

"I'm coming, too!" Jean Grey piped up and joined them, Ororo too flabbergasted to reply, but Logan untangled himself from Rogue's arms and whirled on the redhead.

"No way, kid!"

Jean squared her shoulders and Remy caught a glimpse of the woman he had once known, the woman she was destined to become.

"Don't you start with me!" she said sternly. "I've been Professor Xavier's student since I was a child! You need me!"

A grateful Remy grinned at the fiery young woman. "Thought you didn't want to be pulled into all of this, petite?"

Pursing her lips, Jean merely shrugged. "Maybe, after everything that's happened, I'm learning its best not to fight fate."

* * *

"You can be a real piece of shit sometimes, Erik, you know that?"

Raven had set the coordinates of her teleportation ring to blink them back to their headquarters, nestled beneath the ruins of the island nation of Genosha, and a dark, eerie silence greeted them in the underground bunker. The power was out, but that seemed to be a regular occurrence in what was left of the once prosperous nation, and their eyes adjusted slowly to the soft glow provided by the emergency generators.

Magneto yanked his necktie free and removed his suit's jacket, and laid them over the back of a nearby chair. "No more so than your daughter's… _husband_." He spat the last word and angrily rolled up the cuffs of his dress shirt. Raven had dropped them in near the base's rather spartan kitchen facilities and he was looking forward to nothing more than a stiff drink to numb the emotions that were running riot over him, feelings he had thought he put to rest long ago.

They walked through the entrance to the galley in the dim light, and Raven stepped carefully ahead of him and towards the refrigerator. "You're pathetic," she scoffed.

"I'm pathetic?" He followed her into the open space. "Please, enlighten me." The room was still mostly shadows, but a thick smell, rusty, familiar, burned Erik's nostrils and he bristled, every hair standing on end.

"Same as every male that ever lived, you don't like somebody else playing with your toys. You only want Rogue because you can't have her. Like I said, pathet- _oh_!" Raven slipped and fell onto her behind on the tile floor and in a flash Erik was crouching next to her.

"Are you..?" he whispered and she shoved his hands away.

"I'm fine, but the floor's all wet. What the hell is it…" She held up a hand and even in the dim light they could see the dark stain of blood dripping down her skin. _"Erik."_

In the shadows, a murky puddle spread across the floor and pooled around them. Raven drew her gun from who knew where, and they traced the shimmering liquid, still warm, to its source. M, Monet St. Croix, lay lifeless on the other side of the table, the young woman's unseeing eyes meeting theirs.

"She…she's been gutted, Erik, she's dead! How…?" Raven choked, and their minds went the same direction. Monet was practically indestructible, only someone extremely powerful could have eviscerated her so soundly. _"Creed?"_

There was nothing they could do for Monet, and Magneto closed the girl's eyes, one more young life he had failed. Victor Creed, Sabretooth, a supposedly reformed villain like many on this ragtag team of X-Men, Monet's injuries certainly fit the man's profile. If Creed had been playing them all for fools, the man would pay dearly for such barbarism. He and Raven crept out of the kitchen and began a search.

Magneto soon established that the power outage was not merely due to poor infrastructure. Electricity had been cut to the entire facility, wires and cables severed, equipment destroyed, and despite his efforts, he could not use his magnetic powers to re-establish the connection. The generators would last but a few hours, at which point their oxygen would begin to run low. The bunker was an underground bomb shelter, and fans piped air into the hallways and rooms below. The inky blackness pressed on them like a weight as they descended to the lower levels.

It wasn't long before they were ruling out Sabretooth as their prime suspect, they stumbled over the animal's headless corpse in one of the facilities' hallways. Monet and Creed were two very confident, very powerful individuals. Whoever had killed them could still be lurking in the halls, lying in wait, but several of their teammates were unaccounted for. Fantomex was on an extended mission, but Elisabeth and the shadow of Warren Worthington known as Archangel had been on the premises when Erik had left hours ago. He would not abandon Charles's former students to their fate, he owed his old friend that much.

"I think it's time to go, Erik." Raven reached for his wrist, but he tugged free.

"We must find Psylocke and Archangel," Magneto decreed, but Raven ripped him forward by his shirt collar, and in the faint light provided by the generators, he saw her frightened expression.

"Do you think I give a fuck about them right now? For all we know, Archangel could have... _ARRGGHHH!"_

The sickening slash of sharp metal ripped down Raven's back and sent her sprawling, and Erik dodged a parrying thrust of the same blade. In the muzzle flash of Raven's answering bullets, Erik saw three figures converge on them, Elisabeth, Warren, and another, a stranger to Erik, yet familiar somehow. The span of Worthington's sixteen foot metal wings enveloped the trio and rebounded the gunshots, and Erik's sputtering powers barely managed to keep the metal projectiles away from himself and Raven.

"Vargas!" Mystique screamed and the villain's laughter rang over the frantic din of battle. Psylocke pounced on the injured Mystique with the ferocious grace of a hungry jungle cat, and Erik struggled to deflect razor sharp wings that threatened to give him a close shave. He heard Elisabeth's katana thunk repeatedly into flesh and Raven's accompanying shrieks, but the ninja went rolling backwards thanks to a well-placed kick.

The heroes were not themselves, that much was apparent. To be fair, Warren had not been in control of his faculties for a very long time, but the Elisabeth Braddock who leapt to her feet and attacked again was no longer her own woman. Erik's mind raced in between Archangel's hammering of his magnetic shield. How was this possible? Mesmero was dead, his stiffened corpse had been found by the Avengers in that frozen temple, and telepaths were few and far between, especially one powerful enough to best Psylocke's own psionic abilities. How could…? His concentration and shield slipped, and Warren's wings hacked apart his dress shirt and the meat of his arm. Erik roared and dropped to his knees, but stilled when he felt Archangel's blades at his throat.

The reborn monster Vargas loomed over him, and his voice was the slither of a snake. "The vaunted Master of Magnetism. I shall relish bringing you to heel. It should prove so much more… _satisfying_ than merely disposing of you like the mongrel Creed, wouldn't you agree?" The villain leaned closer and met his eyes, glowing in the dim light, and Erik gasped as a familiar, icy numbness spread from the base of his skull. A memory, so long ago it was nearly forgotten, of an alliance with the world's greatest hypnotist, Mesmero, and the effect his powers could have. Intrusive fingers wiggled their way into Magneto's brain, and in a cold sweat, he recognized Vargas as the abilities' new source, and though he fought with everything he had, it was a fight he was not sure he could win.

"You will make such a wonderful addition to our little team." Vargas stepped around Erik, coming to stand over Raven, impaled on the end of Elisabeth's sword. "This one, I will make part of my personal collection." He removed a glove, and held a hand out to Raven, reaching towards her cheek. "I find it rather poetic, and I am sure your wretched daughter will appreciate the irony: her beloved mother, murdered using her own powers."

Her own powers? Understanding rolled over Erik in a wave as he held on by his mental fingernails. The creature had connected with Rogue in Apocalypse's machine, and had apparently claimed part of Anna's mutant powers as his own. Had Vargas then stolen the deceased Mesmero's powers, perhaps even Monet's, using them against Erik and Raven? With his last ounce of strength, Erik lashed out with his magnetic energy, seeking the iron in all of their blood in an attempt to regain some semblance of control. It was in vain, he had not the strength to hold them, but it gave Raven a second to breathe and it was all she needed. Shifting allowed her to free herself from the point of the blade and she winked out with her teleportation ring.

"That," the creature spat, "sealed your fate!"

Vargas reached into Magneto's mind and ripped it to shreds.


	14. Chapter 14

All characters owned by Marvel Comics

Author's notes: Just checking in on all the characters this chapter, and sorry Warrior-princess 1980-we didn't totally get rid of Magneto just yet. Thanks again for reading!

* * *

 **Chapter Fourteen**

It was after rush hour, but the freeway was still eight jam packed lanes. A semi, purposefully non-descript and anonymous, followed the traffic laws to a 't'. The last thing the driver needed was to be pulled over, and Lord help him if a trooper searched the cargo in the trailer. The driver shuddered. Only one more haul, he told himself, but that did little to relieve the anxiety or guilt. His trailer was full of helpless mutants, frightened men and women who had signed up for cryogenic freezing, trying to hide themselves from the M-Pox until a cure could be found. The Someday Corporation was playing into their fears and offering them salvation, but he thought they were blowing smoke up the muties' asses. There was no escaping what you were, but soon he would be far away from mutants, humans, Inhumans, whatever they all were. With the money he was making off these people, he could buy himself that cabin upstate and never have to see any of them again…

In front of him, a man dropped from the sky and, floating, held out his hands. The driver screamed and tried to brake, but the semi slammed into an invisible wall, and the trailer jackknifed across three lanes of traffic and skidded to a stop on its side just shy of sailing over the cement barricades and into the water below. Blood trickled from where he smashed his face into the spider-webbed windshield. He couldn't breathe, the seatbelt that awkwardly suspended him bit into broken ribs, possibly a punctured lung. All around the semi, the sounds of chaos, crashes, the smell of burning gasoline. The truck shuddered and he heard the groan of tearing metal. He wiped the thick, warm blood from his eyes and stared out the shattered glass. Through the growing smoke and his own pain blurring his vision, he saw the floating man, a mutie from the looks of him, and familiar. Where had he seen him? Sweet Jesus, was that…Magneto? The guy they always showed on the news? The _terrorist_? He was shaking uncontrollably now. Magneto, it was him!

Magneto dropped to the ground and knelt before another freak, and the driver lost control of his bladder at the sight of the behemoth that towered over the mutie. Seven feet tall, maybe eight, he was dressed in a skintight black suit, dark hair slicked back into a ponytail, and his skin was bluish in the light from the burning vehicles. The truck shivered again, and the driver watched as his unconscious and frozen cargo was brought out one by one and presented to the blue-skinned devil, who laid a bare hand on each helpless mutant, seemingly draining what little life they each had and throwing their emptied bodies to the ground.

"NO!" the driver screamed before he could stop himself, and that hideous face turned to him, its wormlike lips spreading in a nightmarish smile. The cab ripped open and a woman with purple hair cut him free of the seatbelt. He tried to run, but his body wouldn't obey him, like someone else was moving it for him. The woman shoved him to his knees on the pavement and ripped his head back by his hair. His eyes met the shiny yellow orbs of the monster staring down at him and he shrieked.

" _Human_ ," the devil spat.

The driver barely felt the blade that slit his throat.

* * *

It was late, and they were all still dressed in their wedding finery as they stood crowded around the remnants of a marble layer cake with chocolate frosting in the kitchen of Fence's bakery. Fatigue was starting to set in for everyone except Wolverine, but Remy knew his wife wouldn't sleep until she had a strategy in place.

Logan's jacket still draped over her shoulders, Anna leaned onto the stainless steel counter and picked dejectedly at the spongey cake. Remy hadn't seen her eat hardly a bite all day thanks to her nerves. Rogue's appetite was the stuff of X-Men legend, but not when she was worked up like she was.

"So," she scowled and dropped her fork in frustration. "Cerebro couldn't track Vargas before?"

"Not really, no." Fence called over his broad shoulder. The man, who had barely made it home from the reception before Remy called him again for help, was busying himself brewing up a pot of coffee, and Jean was using her telekinesis to whisk together a floating collection of mugs and spoons on a serving tray. "Forge built his little gizmo to track mutants, which Vargas isn't. When we were searching for you, we figured out how he and other humans registered on the scans, but there was no way to specifically track him."

Bobby was trying to swallow a mouthful of gooey frosting covered cake, but choked out his thought anyway. "He wasn't a mutant, but what about now? You guys said he's some weird Vargas-Apocalypse mashup. Vargpocalypse?" He raised an eyebrow at Remy. "Apocagus?"

"Gaslypse?" Remy countered and Bobby snorted icing. All night the two of them had been trying to come up with a new name for whatever Vargas had become, and the results had run from the ridiculous to the perverted with no clear crowd favorite.

"Would you two give it a rest?" Rogue growled and stood, stretching her neck. Remy's eyes followed the creamy swath of skin and he sighed. This was their wedding night, they were supposed to be halfway through the Kama Sutra by now…his favorite position was this one where she put her leg over…

 _"Oh!"_

There was the clatter of broken ceramics, and they all turned to a blushing Jean Grey. "I'm…I'm sorry, John," she mumbled and bent down to the fallen tray. The big guy squatted to help her clean up the mess. Fence already seemed to have a soft spot for the young woman whose eyes currently were shooting daggers at Remy.

 _Whoops_. Remy had forgotten the mind reader was still a little green around the edges and had a habit of prying into even his thoughts uninvited. He'd have to keep a lid on his friskier fantasies tonight, but she also needed to work on her psi-shields or she'd get an unwanted mindful. She had heard his thoughts, again, and flicked eyes bright with tears towards the floor.

He hadn't meant to make her feel ashamed, but Remy mentally changed the subject and cleared his throat. "Yeah, Bobby, you may be on to something. If Varg-a-lup-agus is part mutant," Rogue scowled his direction, "we might be able to track him."

"You get me his scent, I can follow the bastard wherever he runs, and then I'll finish it." Logan was scraping the remaining cake onto one of his adamantium claws. Remy had heard the world this man came from was bleak. How long had it been since Logan had enjoyed something as simple as a coffee or a cupcake?

Rogue sighed and laid a hand on Logan's hunched shoulder. "I think we can manage that. If we can rustle up some transportation, we can head back to the Himalayas and that temple, let you sniff around. That bastard's stink is all over the place. As much as I don't want to see that place again, the Avengers may have missed..."

Wolverine snarled and popped the rest of his claws, and the mutants jumped back in alarm.

"Logan, what the hell?" Rogue reached for the man wearing the face of her old friend and Remy had to yank her back. Wide-eyed and growling, Logan ignored them and stalked through the walk-in-cooler that led to Fence's warehouse. Rogue shrugged Remy away, and picked up the skirt of her wedding dress to march after Logan, the rest of them following at a discreet distance.

"Oh, no…" Jean's face twisted and she pressed her palms against her temples.

"What is it…?" The question died as the rusty smell of blood filled Remy's nostrils. He tried to grab his wife's arm, but she shook it off again.

"Logan!" Rogue hissed and Remy winced. Rogue had never been subtle, most of the times it was one of the things he loved about her, but he worried constantly that drawing so much attention to herself might get her killed. He thanked God for Simon Williams and the hero's sacrifice that now protected the woman he loved.

"Keep her away, Cajun." Wolverine's voice echoed from behind one of the shelving units laden down with Rubbermaid tubs full of weapons and computer parts. Remy knew better than to even try to stop her, and had to rush to keep up with Anna.

"Merde." Remy's stomach lurched into his throat and a strangled cry escaped Rogue's lips.

Bobby stood behind them. "Oh, God," he croaked. "Raven?"

Wolverine crouched over the mangled, bloody mess that was Mystique's body, and Rogue knelt next to him, the hem of her beautiful white dress dragging through the slowly spreading crimson slick that poured from a collection of wounds decorating her mother.

"She's still alive, but barely." Jean whispered and buried her face against Remy's shoulder.

"It's okay, chere," he spoke against the top of her head. "You don' have to look." But when Remy closed his eyes, the image of Raven's body, cut to blue and red ribbons, was burned onto his retinas like the flash of a camera. His heart broke when Rogue reached out for her with a trembling hand.

" _Momma?_ What happened?"

Logan grabbed her hand before she touched Raven's bare skin. Had he assumed Rogue was going to get an answer one way or another? Logan caught Remy's eyes in confirmation and Remy nodded gratefully. They both knew Anna didn't need to relive her mother's pain firsthand, no matter how desperate they were for information. There had to be another way.

"I'll call an ambulance." A horrified Fence stepped back towards the bakery, but Bobby stopped him.

"We can't take her to a civilian hospital with all that M-Pox crap going on, there's no way they'd be equipped to deal with this. We gotta try to get her to X-Haven. The school's infirmary is the only place that's willing to handle mutants."

Rogue didn't look up, but nodded. "You're right. Can we call Illyana, or Ororo, or…"

Raven's hand shot out and grabbed Logan's beefy wrist. Remy saw his wife stifle a scream. The shapeshifter's yellow eyes found her daughter's and with her failing strength, Raven removed her teleportation ring from her own blood slickened finger and laid it in Wolverine's palm before drifting back into unconsciousness.

Taking the ring and standing, Rogue stared bleakly at the small metallic circle. "Y'all think this thing can take us to hell and back?"

* * *

"She'll live, but it's gonna be rough on her for a while."

The mutant inventor Forge had been an on again, off again member of the X-Men for as long as Remy had been around, and had been in love with Ororo Munroe for even longer. In X-Haven, Forge, Ororo, and Remy had been in her office for what seemed like hours, dancing around the elephant in the room.

"Thanks, mon ami." Remy rubbed his hand across the thickening stubble along his jaw. It had been a long day and night and none of them had gotten much sleep. Bobby had volunteered to take a test jump with Raven's teleportation ring and, successful, had come back to spirit them all, Fence included, to the X-Men's base, the school now cradled in the depths of Limbo. The recovering Catholic in Remy could hardly believe it, even though it wasn't the first time he had been there. Limbo, as in between heaven and hell, the _actual_ hell. He looked over the Cheyenne's shoulder out the windows of the headmistress's study to watch demons attempting to worm their way through the school's defensive shields and spells. He shuddered and turned his attention back to Forge. "I know this can't be easy for you, what with you and Raven's history."

Forge chuckled. "Yeah, our history. Water under the bridge, I guess. The irony being that Raven always considered my capacity for forgiveness a massive character flaw."

"We all have our lapses in judgement, eh?"

"Yours seem to be mounting, Remy."

"Pardon?" Remy raised an eyebrow towards Ororo's hollow voice and her blue cat-like eyes cut through him.

"I did not stutter. Bringing Mystique here was a considerable breach of this school's security. Your actions have placed many young lives in danger."

"That's cold, Wind Rider, even for you." Forge plopped down on the edge of the headmistress's heavy oak desk and shook his head. "Should they have just let Raven die instead?"

Remy wanted to scream at her, to ask her when she had become so callus and cruel, but he saw the goddess mask slip and Ororo's face shattered with grief.

"I do not know, Maker. It seems difficult choices are the only ones we have left." She leaned her elbows on the desk and tented her fingers, a move oddly reminiscent of Professor Charles Xavier, the man in whose name they all fought. "Have you had any success contacting X-23 or her team?"

"No dice," Forge replied. "Wherever they're hiding, they're doing a damn good job staying under Cerebro's radar, Evan included."

"Let's hope they stay that way," Remy said. Evan, Kid Apocalypse, was a bright and cheery clone of the original harbinger of doom. Despite his genetic pedigree, Remy hadn't experienced any Death freak-outs in the kid's presence. No one wanted to imagine what the villain Vargas could possibly have planned for his clone, if he even knew Evan existed. For now, out of sight was hopefully out of mind, and if anyone could keep him safe, it was Laura. "We look for them too hard, might draw some unwanted attention their way."

"Nevertheless, we will continue our efforts to make contact. If they do not wish to join us, they should at least be armed with the knowledge of such a threat." Ororo frowned. "How long until Mystique is able to answer our questions?"

Forge shrugged. "Hard to say. Raven's tough, but whoever hit her, hit her hard."

"I got a pretty good guess who's responsible." Remy slid forward in the leather chair perched in front of Ororo's desk and she looked up at him wearily.

"It would be premature to jump to conclusions. Raven does not play well with others, the list of suspects is surely extensive." She sighed. "But, is it still your intention to hunt down the creature Vargas has become?"

"I don' think we have much of a choice, Stormy."

"Though it pains me to say, I have come to much the same conclusion. I can no longer ignore the risk Vargas represents to the mutants seeking refuge here."

Was she really going to help his team take their fight to the villain? Remy held his breath, but the answer he received kicked it right out of him.

"We must protect X-Haven at all costs. Raven may remain here until she recovers, but under heavy observation. Your team was able to breach our defenses much too easily. Illyana is already hard at work on a spell that will seal the school grounds. Once you and your team have left Limbo, she will make it so you, and no one else, can return."

* * *

With a heavy heart, Rogue watched the slow blip of Mystique's own beating on the screen before her. How could this have happened? Her mother had left with Erik, had he hurt her or had he been injured, too? She knew how she could find out, but almost as if he could read her mind, Logan had been making sure she hadn't been able to lay a finger on Raven. Even now, she felt his eyes on her, he had gone from avoiding her stare to meeting hers with an intensity that bottomed out her stomach. _His_ Rogue, he had said. What did that mean?

She tore her eyes away from his and glanced over at Bobby and Jean who were both snoring softly, Jean curled into the chair and leaning her head on Bobby's shoulder. Part of her was proud to have her friends at her side, but the other part wanted to keep them safe at all costs, and unlike Remy, Rogue understood the burdens Ororo carried within her.

Lorna Dane poked her head in the infirmary's door. "Hey, Rogue, I scrounged up a change of clothes for you."

Rogue nodded and stood, shrugging out of Logan's wrinkled suit jacket. "Thanks for the loan, sugar." She followed his eyes down the mounds of gauzy white fabric to the red staining its hem and bit back a fresh blur of tears. How had such a perfect, beautiful day turned into such a nightmare? Was a normal life too much to ask for? Sadly, she had known the answer to that question since her very first kiss.

"Darlin'…" Logan stood, but she waved off his hands.

"I'll be right back."

Lorna gestured down the hall. "The locker room is just…"

"Yeah. Thanks. I taught here, remember?" She knew her brusqueness hurt Lorna's feelings, but she just wasn't in the mood to make small talk right now. Rogue had meant it when she said she wouldn't think badly of Lorna or Shiro or any of the others that hadn't chosen to help them, but Remy didn't seem to share her acceptance.

In the locker room, she stripped off her dress in disgust and threw it onto the tiled floor, and took a quick, scalding shower. Bobby, Jean…Remy…she didn't want any of them hurt. This monster had a serious axe to grind against her thanks to Irene's predictions, and would keep coming for her until one of them was truly, finally dead. Anna stood under the water and felt the slippery circle of Raven's teleportation ring firmly on her finger. She could go, alone, and hunt Vargas down. Ororo and X-Haven would keep her family safe. She knew Remy would never forgive her if she left him behind, and she had sworn she would never do that to him again, but the safety of her husband trumped that promise. This was all her fault, her mess to clean up, and she wouldn't risk his life again.

Decided, she grabbed her towel and wrapped it around her before she stepped out from behind the curtain. She nearly jumped out of her skin. Logan stood in the middle of the ladies' locker room clutching her wedding dress in his burly hands.

"What the hell, Logan?" She tugged the towel tighter and scowled.

He laid the dress gently out across the bench and his fingertips lingered on the hand-sewn bodice. "You're going solo," he stated flatly and her temper rose in her throat.

She grabbed the black and green costume Lorna had found for her. "Never said that." Turning back to the shower stall, she pulled the curtain and hurriedly dressed in private.

"Y'didn't have to say it out loud, darlin'. Your face, your lips, your smell…"

The curtain snapped so hard it pulled off the rings when she emerged. "What, are you a mind reader now?"

He had changed clothes, too, his suit gone, replaced with a modified Wolverine costume, a leather jacket over the top. "No, but you could never hide anything from me. Besides, this time I think you're right."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Oh?"

"Drake, the kid, your…husband… they're nothing but liabilities, especially with what they say happened to the Cajun the last time he fought this son of a bitch."

"Remy's got that under control," she retorted, even though the thought had been chewing at the back of her mind. All of the school's scanners had given Remy a clean bill of health after his brush with Vargas. His nightmares had stopped after he had brought himself back from Death in that temple, but they had been down this road before. The first time he had been changed by Apocalypse, a desperate Remy had gone to Sinister of all people in search of a cure, only to be torn apart again by the face of his former master in Tibet. He had beaten the devil inside of him back, but if Warren Worthington was any indication, Apocalypse's machinations were a chronic disease, and she didn't want to put Remy in a position for another flare up.

Logan saw her falter and pressed the advantage. "They ain't got the stomach for what we gotta do. We'd be too worried 'bout 'em to get the job done.

"We?"

He grimaced and met her eyes. "You and me, darlin', always made a great team."

* * *

Faster. Stronger. He leapt and the jump became flight, his body sailing over the rubble that was all that remained of the city of Hammer Bay on the island of Genosha. In his palms, he conjured a half dozen glowing spheres of plasma and sent them to rain down, exploding the wreckage of lives' lost. The powers, so many now to choose from, what could he use next? Vargas held out a hand and sent a blast of energy rippling across the sky.

Genosha, though it was a miserable slag heap, had provided wonderful surprises, the most intriguing of all a list compiled by Magneto himself detailing the powers and whereabouts of the world's surviving mutants. How wonderfully convenient, a shopping list courtesy the Master of Magnetism.

Further along the horizon he spotted the floating form of Magneto, hard at work under hypnotic suggestion, repairing the damage wrought to the man's former imperial palace. If it was not so delicious to watch the vaunted mutant savior do his bidding, Vargas would surely have claimed Magneto's powers for his own. Perhaps, when he was finished toying with him…

Inside Vargas's mind, the stolen voices screamed again, louder this time, dropping him from the clouds to crash land in a pile of twisted metal. Writhing in agony he clawed at his hair and bit his bottom lip to keep from crying out as he fought for control of his mind and body.

"Master!" Psylocke was at his side and her light fingers brushed the sweaty hair from his bare forehead. At the unwanted touch, Vargas's mind was violently expanded, split open by a dose of her telepathy. He tried in vain to break contact, to control her power, but it was beyond him, he could not stop the transfer, the slightest hint of skin beckoning a flood of someone else into his increasingly crowded subconscious, and the pain coursed through his already frayed nerves.

"Do not touch me!" he roared, but it was too late. He shoved her away and she slumped unconscious to the ground. It was getting worse. _The voices._ Struggling to gain traction were those he had absorbed, gaining their unwelcome souls along with their powers. If he concentrated, he could keep them at bay, but the last group he had taken, the mutants in cryogenic slumber, seemed harder to silence than Vanisher or Mesmero. There were so _many_. If his control faltered, could they claim his body as their own? How had Rogue done it? How had she not drowned, lost herself to the chaos? How had she not gone mad?

Though it pained him to admit it, he would have to remain selective with the abilities he welcomed into his body. No matter how intoxicating the idea of possessing so many powers for his own use seemed, the consequences could be dire. Just because he could absorb every mutant that lived did not mean that he should. Until he could control it, he would have to limit any permanent absorptions to only the best, the strongest that mutantkind had to offer. There could be no more mistakes.

Stumbling to his feet, he ground the heels of his hands against his still alien eyes. Too many questions about his transformation remained, and he needed answers that even Magneto's sophisticated computers and files could not provide. He needed whatever was left of Apocalypse's computers, only they could tell him what he had truly become.

"Tibet," he murmured. "We must return to Tibet."


	15. Chapter 15

All characters owned by Marvel Comics

* * *

 **Chapter Fifteen**

Emerging from the elevator into the school's lower levels, Remy rounded the corner towards the infirmary. Outside Raven's room, Bobby and Lorna stood together and spoke in hushed whispers. Lorna forced a weary smile when Remy sidled up next to them.

"Hey."

"Hey." Remy was more than a little disappointed in Lorna. He understood the fear of Apocalypse that was surely ripping her guts apart, but if he had learned anything from a youth of horribly wrong choices, it was that the past caught up with you no matter how far you ran. Hiding from what had happened to them wasn't going to make it go away, but he didn't have the energy to try and convince Lorna or Shiro of the inevitability of their situation.

"Did Rogue come and find you?" Bobby asked over another cup of coffee, and Remy frowned and looked in the window to Raven's room. Rogue was no longer holding a bedside vigil, nor was her new elderly shadow. Raven's only companion was Jean Grey, the girl fast asleep in one of the room's cramped chairs, cuddled under Bobby's jacket.

An anxious twinge grabbed hold of Remy's stomach. "Non. When did she…?"

Behind the glass, Jean sat bolt upright and cried out in alarm, her green eyes wide. The trio of seasoned X-Men rushed into the room, and Remy crouched in front of Jean while Bobby checked Raven's vital signs.

"Oh, no, no…" Jean shook her head and closed her eyes, balling her hands into fists in her lap.

Remy grabbed the young woman's slim shoulders and shook her. "What's wrong, petite? Is Raven…?"

Jean shoved him away and Remy fell back on his ass with a thud. "No, no, no…" she kept repeating and stepped over the flabbergasted Cajun.

"Jean!" His eyes found Drake's and Bobby gestured for Remy to follow her.

"Raven's the same." Bobby shrugged and straightened Mystique's blankets. "You guys go, I'll catch up."

It was Remy and Lorna that had to catch up to Jean. The girl had rushed forward on a wave of telekinetic power and propelled herself through the doors to the ladies' locker room. Remy hesitated at the entrance and Lorna held up a hand.

"I'll make sure the coast is clear," she said and stepped in after Jean. Remy had a past reputation as a notorious ladies' man, but that hadn't included peeping at any female students in the changing room, and he wasn't looking to start any new rumors. In a couple heartbeats, Lorna's ashen face pushed back through the door. "I…I think you better take a look at this," she whispered and held the door for him. He shouldered past her and caught sight of Jean standing over a bench and hugging herself. Rogue's beautiful wedding dress, the border stained an intrusive red, lay perfectly arranged on the wooden plank.

His heart thudding erratically, Remy looked around for Anna. Had she been hurt? Jean's eyes met his for a brief second, and she shook her head, her gaze dropping to the dress. Remy's followed and found an envelope with his name on it set against the gossamer fabric.

"Remy?" Lorna's small voice reached out for him, but he shrugged away from her, and with shaking hands bent to retrieve the surprisingly heavy envelope. He couldn't breathe, his vision was tunneling. She didn't…she _wouldn't…_

When he opened the envelope, Anna's wedding rings tumbled into his palm. The sight of the diamond and matching band ripped his heart open, and he had to turn away from the women as he read the note addressed to him.

' _Remy,'_

Her handwriting was hurried, the pen strokes furious. He could barely make it out through the unexpected haze of his own tears, and had to lean an arm against the cold metal bank of lockers to focus.

 _'I'm sorry, my love, but Logan and I are going after Vargas. Please try to understand, this mess is all my fault. It's me the bastard wants, so it has to be me that takes him down. I couldn't bear the thought of anything happening to you. Please hold on to my rings, and keep them and yourself safe. When I am able, I'll come home to you, if you'll still have me._

 _My love, always,_

 _Anna'_

"Fuck!" He screamed and slammed a fist into the lockers in front of him. "Fuck, fuck, _FUCK!"_ If he'd still have her…why did she always think so little of his love for her? His vision went a sick, angry red, the boiling heat inside accompanied by something else, an icy slide down his spine, familiar and unwanted. She left him behind. Again! Sidelined him like he was some fucking amateur…and that motherfucker Logan…

"Remy?" Lorna's voice moved closer to him, but he was in no shape to talk this through with anybody. He was so beyond furious he was shaking, the rage tugging at something cold and dead inside him.

"Not now," he barked, to himself as much as them, and hung his head between his outstretched arms. What the fuck was he going to do? How much more would Death take from him? His soul? His wife? Anna had Raven's goddamned teleportation ring. They could be anywhere, his loving wife and this kamikaze Wolverine with nothing left to lose, but Remy didn't need more than one guess to figure out where the pair's first stop would be. _Tibet_ , though it might as well have been the moon as easily as they could reach it, especially after Storm's earlier words, there was no way Illyana would help them, and Remy was in no shape to follow.

 _'Remy!'_ Jean's telepathic voice shoved into his head and he roared inside at the sudden intrusion breaking his concentration, but she held his hands fast with her telekinesis. _'Gambit, the lockers!'_

Lifting his chin, he started in horror at the bank of lockers in front of him, which were now glowing an ominous magenta. In his rage, he had charged the whole row and nearly blown them all sky high.

"Mon dieu!" he hissed and gritted his teeth, pulling the energy back in to himself hand over mental hand. If he had let go, if Jean hadn't stopped him…he shuddered and sank to his knees when the last quiver of energy zinged up the nerves in his arm. The feeling of Anna's diamond ring burned into his fist and he used the pain to focus and pull himself back from the brink. The monster inside followed the wrath into the pits of his stomach until it was a dull, distant ache.

There was a knock on the door and Bobby opened it a crack and peeked through. "Everybody all right in here?" he asked and Lorna helped a shaky Remy stand.

"Not really, Bobby, but come on in." Lorna Dane and Bobby Drake had been an item more than once, and though it had been a long time ago, the two still knew each other well enough for Bobby to catch the gravity of the situation with just one sentence and a flick of her neon green eyes. He stepped into the room and Remy thrust the note into Bobby's chest. Drake read it with Lorna and Jean at his shoulders while Remy stared bleakly at the dress draped across the bench, the hard edges of the diamond cutting the palm of his clenched fist to ribbons.

"I don't get it," Drake frowned. "I mean, I know her and Logan have their little team thing that they do, but this guy isn't _our_ Logan. He acts like he doesn't give two shits about us. Why would he risk his neck for her?"

"I got no fucking idea," Remy mumbled. Rogue and Wolverine, an unstoppable force no matter the reality? But none of it would matter if Remy couldn't keep it together…

* * *

"What a fucking mess," Logan grumbled and crouched low to the frozen floor. Weeks of exposure to the raging snowstorms of the Himalayan Mountains had done nothing to improve what was left of Apocalypse's temple.

Rogue hugged herself in the hooded jacket she had grabbed before their hasty exit from X-Haven and watched Wolverine move. She knew he had his work cut out for him. Between the weather and an army of Avengers trampling the place, they'd be lucky if anything recognizably Vargas remained.

"We stabbed him over here," she gestured to the corner where the computer banks had stood. Most of the equipment was gone, Remy had said Tony Stark had taken it back to New York to study it further. She hoped Iron Man was taking extra precautions, because where Apocalypse was concerned, you never knew what to expect. Tony'd be lucky if the ancient computers didn't rewrite his whole mainframe, but if anybody could squeeze blood from a turnip, it was Stark.

She and Logan trudged through snow banks, and Logan went down on one knee and brushed a frozen white pile away to reveal the dark crimson staining the blocks under their feet.

"Bingo," Rogue said and made to kneel next to him, but he held a hand up to stop her.

"Give me a sec." His voice, gravelly and frightening to most, had always been comforting to her. She kept having to tell herself that this wasn't her Logan, not her friend, and this man had been through untold horrors that she would never understand, but in the dim light of the chamber her voice caught in her throat. It had been months, almost a year since Logan had died, yet here he was, walking, talking, breathing. Her grief threatened to pull her under.

"Got him." He looked up at her and gestured to the stain. "You're in here, too."

She crouched next to him and brushed the edges of the frozen stain with her fingertips. It had been so close, she and Remy escaping by the skin of their teeth. She shivered and stood, clearing the snow from her knees.

"Now what?" she asked and Logan rose next to her and chuckled.

"You're askin' me, boss?"

She scowled at him and stuffed her hands in her pockets. He was right, she was the one who had agreed to running off after Vargas, just the two of them, and she was the one who had snuck a look at Raven's memories while Bobby and Jean had been snoring in their chairs. That twisted knot of anguish sitting in the pit of her stomach wound itself a little tighter, and Rogue fought the sudden urge to vomit. This was all her fault on so many levels, and she had to hug herself to stop from shaking to pieces. From Raven's pain soaked memories, Rogue had patched together enough to understand that Vargas, along with what the machine had given him from Apocalypse, had claimed a warped version of her own mutant power for himself. Vargas had attacked Raven and Erik's pretend squad of X-Men, and the villain had taken Betsy and Warren, probably Erik, under his control thanks to newly acquired hypnotic powers. Jesus, he had killed Sabretooth….and _Monet_ …

She jumped when Logan's burly hand swept a frozen tear from her cheek. He turned her chin towards him. "Stop blaming yourself." His true blue eyes burned into her from a face that had seen too much pain, and her own pain, raw, angry, she swallowed for another day.

"Right. Let's start our search, sugar, see if there's anythin' else to turn up. Then, I'd like to pay a visit to some of Apocalypse's other snake holes, see what else we can-"

Logan's eyes widened and he sprang at her. "Look out!" His bulk, three hundred fifty pounds of muscle over adamantium bones, slammed into her and knocked the wind out of her. The two rolled across the crunch of frost as razor sharp projectiles exploded the space they had previously occupied, and over Logan's shoulder, Rogue saw the familiar silhouette of Archangel.

"Worthington!" Logan snarled and popped his claws to fend off another volley of feathery missiles. Warren, but was he alone? The fight was coming to them already and she said a silent prayer that they could handle it.

* * *

"I still say this is a terrible idea."

Jean scowled and snatched Remy's hand with one of her own. The other hand she placed on Raven's forehead. "We need answers, right? She's not waking up anytime soon, and Rogue and Wolverine are out there somewhere. If you have better idea, I'd like to hear it."

The two of them had set up camp in Mystique's infirmary room. Remy's new mother-in-law had yet to stir, but they needed to know exactly what had happened to her. He was convinced his lovely wife had gone ahead and made the physical contact Logan had been compelling her to avoid, and whatever Rogue had pulled from her mother's mind had tipped the scales on her better judgement and sent her and Logan after Raven knew what. Remy was still fuming at Anna for going off just her and Wolverine, especially whoever this Wolverine was, but that wasn't all that was had him worked up. Yeah, he was man enough to admit that part of his irritation sprang from being left behind, but part of it was outright fear for her safety. If it had been their Logan, his nervousness may have been somewhat alleviated because Remy knew their Logan would gladly lay down his life for Rogue. This Logan, however, was still an unknown. What was his angle? Remy hadn't told anyone else about what else had risen earlier along with his temper, and hoped to God he'd be able to hide it from Jean. He couldn't allow himself to be sidelined, not now.

"Please shut your brain up, Gambit, I'm only half sure of what I'm doing here and I need to concentrate." Jean squeezed his fingers so hard Remy winced. "Ready?"

"Are you?"

Jean was still a novice using her telepathic power, but mind readers were few and far between in a post-Inhuman world. What they were attempting, the two of them entering Raven's damaged mind, could be dangerous, especially to Jean Grey. Trading war stories with the adult Jean long ago, Remy had learned that the woman's mutant powers had catalyzed years earlier than most, brought to horrible life during to the death of her childhood friend, Annie Richardson. The girls had been just kids, practically babies, playing Frisbee, and Annie had been hit by a truck on a blind curve. Jean's empathic powers had kicked in and she had felt her friend die, connected to her as Annie's thoughts had winked out one by one. That incident was only a handful of years old for the young woman in front of him, and Remy knew he was asking a great deal of Jean. At the least, what they were attempting was reckless and irresponsible, and after his freak out he was hardly firing on all cylinders. Stormy would never have approved of the plan, which was why Bobby Drake was upstairs running interference with Ororo while Lorna was guarding the room in the hall.

Remy would never ask Jean to put herself in a dangerous situation he wasn't willing to weather himself, poison gas wielding alter ego or no. He wasn't a telepath, his kinetic abilities were more tactile, but aspects of his mind were what Professor Xavier would probably have called psi-sensitive, if Remy had ever let the Professor study him. He had never been a student of Xavier's in the traditional sense, and now that he was older, part of him regretted that fact. Whether relying on instinctive talent, luck, or by using an actual undefined dimension of his mutant powers, Remy had usually been able to keep even the most seasoned telepaths at bay and out of his deepest, darkest thoughts. The Professor had once compared trying to read Remy's mind to trying to hold onto a snake dipped in oil. Who knew where Gambit would be, what he would have been able to do, if he had given the Professor the opportunity to study his gifts further, but that would have meant letting someone in, trusting someone, and that had been too much for a younger Remy to give.

 _'Here goes…'_ Jean's telepathic voice rang loudly inside his ears, and Remy felt his awareness expand, then contract, the infirmary room vanishing in an instant, replaced with the washed out flickers that were presumably Raven's memories. Jean's astral form still held his hand, and their likenesses were in color, slightly more solid looking, than the greyish world around them. The figures of Erik and Raven, transparent as ghosts, were talking, but their voices were muffled, hushed whispers.

 _'Focus, petite.'_ Remy concentrated himself, bolstering Jean's considerable strength with his own. The young woman was more than powerful enough to pull Raven's memories from her mind, it was the know-how she lacked, and there was no one left to teach her how to do it, especially with Rogue MIA. Remy was the one who fit the bill the closest, but he really had no fucking idea what they were doing either, he had always been on the other side of evading the mental probe. The pair were improvising, but adding Remy's psychic leaning whatever it was to the mix did the trick. The world around them slammed into focus like tuning in a radio station, and they watched in dismay the events that had transpired after Raven and Erik had fled the wedding reception.

It had been brutal. Monet was dead, Creed dead, maybe even Erik, they couldn't tell. Raven had escaped before his end had come, but that hadn't even been the worst of it. Through the screaming agony of Raven's injuries, Remy understood what had happened in Tibet, what Vargas had taken from Rogue, and his heart ached for his love. With the combined powers of Vanisher and Mesmero, the villain could go anywhere, control anyone. Had he taken Monet's, too, before he murdered her? Warren and Elisabeth were lost to the monster, but for all they knew, the pair was just the first of many. Vargas had used the hit, run, and absorb strategy pretty effectively when he had kidnapped Rogue, and they had only been able to react to him, had never gotten ahead of him enough to stop what he had been planning.

He and Jean came up for air, gasping, the infirmary room taking shape before them as Remy tried to process what they had seen. Rogue had been right. None of them would be safe until Vargas was destroyed. He exhaled and scraped a shaky hand through his hair. This was a nightmare, no matter which way they turned.

Jean grimaced and squeezed his hand before she let go. "It's not her fault," she said softly, and Remy wanted to cry.

"You try and tell her that, petite." He shoved himself out of the hard backed chair and shook the telepathic cobwebs from his brain. "Thank you, cherie, for all you done for us." The girl smiled and he touched her shoulder. "You don't have to do this, y'know. This isn't your fight."

She met his gaze with a surprising ferocity. "I'm an X-Man, and that makes this my fight. I'm done running away from who I am and who I will be."

Unable to argue, Remy sent her off to pack a bag and get some rest, then moved through X-Haven, retrieving his wayward teammates. Bobby was still behind the headmistress's closed door, but it was a fight Remy had given up on. If he had any hope of continuing a relationship with Ororo, he couldn't keep asking her for things she was unwilling or unable to give. It hurt too much. With Anna missing again, he was beginning to understand where Storm was coming from, how desperately Ororo worked to protect those in her charge, but that didn't make her rejection any easier to swallow. After changing into working clothes himself, he found Fence in Forge's lab, the two tech nerds elbow deep in circuit boards.

"Train's leaving soon, John," he called to get the big guy's attention.

"Aww, five more minutes, mom?"

Remy stood beside Fence and crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes wandering over the gadgets, spare parts, and tools littering the work bench. "It's really not up to me, mon ami. Stormy's shutting the doors to X-Haven. It's all ashore what's going ashore, and wit' my wife running off with our transportation, we don' have a lot of alternative routes."

Without looking up from the gizmo he was tinkering with, Forge held a hand out to Remy. "Present for you," Forge said.

Remy opened his hand and a titanium ring bounced against his gloved palm. "Mon ami, I didn't know you cared," Remy quipped, and Forge lifted his chin and blinked at him from behind goggles that magnified his dark eyes.

"I don't, but that doesn't mean I don't want to help. It's a teleportation ring, a combination of the technology used for the Cerebra unit and Raven's fancy jewelry."

"Merde," Remy breathed, flabbergasted. "Forge, this is…!"

"Don't get too excited, it's strictly a prototype. Thank me when you all make it to Earth in one piece."

Remy swallowed the lump in his throat and his eyes lighted on a pile of black wristbands in the middle of the table. Fence and Forge were each working on one of the Fitbit looking bracelets in front of them, which Remy now recognized as the power dampeners Rogue had been forced to wear during her captivity at Vargas's hands. He and Rogue had brought the devices with them when they had visited X-Haven to announce their engagement. "What are you doin'?"

Forge reached for a pair of tweezers. "Working on some upgrades, pal." The mutant inventor hunched over the device. "I've been messing with these things since you brought 'em here."

"Messing with them?"

"Just seeing what they can do, what makes them tick." Forge laid the band down, took off his goggles and rubbed his eyes. "They're actually pretty sophisticated little buggers, which is kind of scary considering I can't tell where they're from or who made them, but they do a hell of a lot more than just shut off the powers of the wearer. We figured out you can reverse the flow and block the effects of certain powers used _against_ the wearer."

Remy's heart thudded a heavy fist in his chest. "Block powers. Like, any powers?"

Turning his stool to face Remy, Forge crossed his arms over his chest. "No, I don't think so, not physical powers, though I won't know for sure until we can test them further, but it appears these things can block the effects of mental powers like telepathy. In their original capacity, the device stopped the wearer from using their own abilities by effectively cloaking or hiding those powers, denying a person access to their own gifts. In reverse, it cloaks the mind of the wearer, hiding them from another's mental abilities."

"Kind of like Magneto's helmet?" Remy asked, but Forge frowned.

"Yeah, same concept, but more like the chamber Xavier hid in a long time ago to beat the alien Z'Nox. The technology is close enough that it makes me nervous."

"Too bad we didn't have our hands on these a few weeks ago," Fence chimed in, "would have made life a little easier against that hypnotist."

To his surprise, Remy could only laugh. "Better late than never, mes amis."

* * *

"Fastball special, darlin'?"

Rogue nodded and heaved Logan through the air. The old familiar move tightened the grief she always carried inside, but she shook it off to a dull ache and launched herself after the flying Wolverine.

Archangel was fast, but not quite fast enough, and Logan clipped the edge of his wings with his claws. Warren roared in pain and spun mid-air, slashing Logan with the blades of the opposite wing. A spray of blood followed Wolverine slamming into the remains of another temple wall, what was left of the massive room shuddering, and Rogue barreled into Warren from behind. Stopping himself before he crashed against the floor, Warren came at her again. His wings shouldn't have been able to hurt her invulnerable skin, but then they shouldn't have been able to rip Monet to shreds. Thankfully, they just made a mess of her costume. She caught his wrists in her grip and the two struggled overhead.

"Warren!" she yelled inches from his blue-skinned face. "Snap out of it, sugar!"

Long ago, she had thought she loved Warren Worthington III, but it had just been a ridiculously dangerous schoolgirl crush. He had been beautiful, an Angel from on high, but after Apocalypse, all that was left was the devil that had pulled him low. Warren's eyes were vacant, blank, and she felt sick at what she knew had been done to him. He was a puppet, just like she had been, but where was the man pullin' his strings? Was Vargas here? Warren shook her hands away and before she could snatch him again, a cannonball in the shape of Wolverine slammed into her backside and the pair of them smashed into the stone floor, the force bringing about another mountainside shimmy. Logan was unconscious and practically glued to the ground, and Rogue had to wriggle out from under him before she could get airborne. Above, Warren wasn't alone as Magneto floated into view. Despite the danger she faced, she breathed a sigh of relief. At least Erik was alive and hadn't been absorbed, there was still a chance to save him. She rose into the air between the men and her prone partner.

"Erik, this doesn't have to be a fight between us! Don't let him control you!"

The Master of Magnetism stretched out his arms, and the temple around them began to quake ominously, the walls tumbling, chunks of stone raining too close to Logan.

"Erik!" she screamed. "Stop this! Logan!"

She dove for Wolverine in the same moment Magneto raised his hands towards her. At his command, an enormous metal projectile cobbled together from the debris littering the chamber rammed through her body, pinning her to the floor, the force bringing about a fresh round of temple trembles. With shaking fingers, she clawed at the massive bloody crater in her body, the pain drowning out everything but the sound of her own pulse thudding in her ears. A shadow fell across her field of vision, blocking out the harsh winter sun. _Vargas._ He floated over them and gloated, his laughter cutting through her like a knife. She was losing consciousness, her blood draining through the cracks in the stones beneath her, and Logan was still out cold. They were at the bastard's mercy. After everything, was this the end? _NO_ , she gritted her teeth and screamed inside, she wouldn't let it be! As she struggled, her thoughts turned to Remy and how she had left things between them, but her escape attempt proved to be the straw that broke the temple's back. Their battle had weakened what was left of the mountain, and her superstrength thrashing triggered an earthquake. The floor buckled beneath them, the mountain folding in on itself at a frightening speed, and their enemies scrambled backwards to save themselves. Wrenching at the bloody rod protruding from her abdomen and screaming Logan's name, Rogue fought to free herself as the tons of rubble rained down on them, but it was no use. She reached for Logan, and the last thing she saw was the look of impotent fury on Vargas's face as the darkness caved in around them.


	16. Chapter 16

All characters owned by Marvel Comics

Author's notes: So, as ishandahalf predicted (seriously, ish, do you have a secret tap on my computer?), we get a little more background on my Old Man Logan this chapter. Again, I am taking a lot of liberties with this character. Some of what is in here is accurate as to how he is portrayed in the comics, but anything concerning he and Rogue is completely pulled out of my ass. (I am Romy all the way, like 99.999%, but Rogan is sort of my dirty little .0001%)

And, sorry any old school New Mutants/X-Force fans, you might not like this chapter...the Vargmeister needed some more victims...

Thanks again everybody for reading! So happy to have you all on board! (and geez jpraner, thanks for upping the review count this week - that was a nice surprise)

* * *

 **Chapter Sixteen**

 _"Don't you leave me, darlin'!"_

It took her a moment to realize the wet, rattling gasp drowning out his voice was the sound of her own breathing. Her chest was heavy, her body floating and numb, her eyelids lead weights. When she opened them, she was on her back, the world around her black and cold and close. Vargas! _Erik!_ Where were they? Were they still in danger? She tried to sit up, but it all spun furiously, and steady hands held her against the ground. Her fingers curled into a warm, thick pool puddled beneath her.

"Take it!" Logan roared and shook her. " _Rogue!?_ You hear me, darlin'?! Take it!"

She heard him, but he was so far away, and it was so hard to think… _take what_ , she wanted to scream back, but the words stuck in her throat.

He leaned his startlingly warm cheek against hers and she shivered. "Take it, Anna. All of it," he whispered in her ear. "It was always yours anyway."

Since adolescence, Rogue had been able to borrow the memories and abilities of anyone she touched. These absorptions had often given her more than she bargained for, her mutant powers gobbling up everything her victims had inside their hearts and minds - all their hopes and dreams, their love, their hate, their fear - became hers with just a hint of her skin against theirs. She had learned to control it, to only borrow what she needed from her victim and leave the rest be, but the pain and the cold, the desperation, clouded her fine control. Pulling on Wolverine and his powers with everything she had, she yanked his mind inside hers as well. He collapsed against her body and his healing factor washed over her skin like a brush fire on the prairie. Along with the pain of her body knitting itself back together one agonizing stitch at a time rose Logan, his thoughts mixing with hers, this familiar stranger wearing the weary face of her dead friend.

It had been a long time since Rogue had been overwhelmed by the memories of another, but suddenly she was sinking in the quicksand of Logan's guilt, of his anger. The stark terror of his world flooded her subconscious. Where he came from, the villains had joined forces. The heroes never stood a chance, and she watched his world come to an end, relieved it with him, flipping backwards in time through death and wars, through the unimaginable rage and horror and grief of losing everything that ever mattered. Still living, still breathing, but without your heart and soul. It had always been his greatest curse, _surviving_. He had a wife once, children, but they were gone, murdered along with his friends, his hope…she tried to push it away, to shove him from her thoughts… _it hurt so much_ …but the memories dug in their claws and held tight, like he wanted her to see…like he needed someone to understand…

Memories of a night bubbled to the surface, raw and bloody, so long ago but still so vivid after so much time gone by. His greatest sin if he still believed in God, and Rogue stood as his silent witness. Logan's mind and body had been controlled by another, and he had destroyed everything that had ever mattered to him in a berserker rage, unleashing the beast inside against what he had thought were their greatest enemies, but he had been so horribly wrong. Under the influence of the villain Mephisto, Logan had _killed_ the X-Men, unable to distinguish friend from foe.

In the real world, she howled for him and all he had lost, for all he had done, held his body tight against hers and cried his tears. He had wanted to die, too, couldn't stand what he had done, but he forced himself to relive it, to remember. His penance, atonement... How had he endured? So much pain…

Inside, she saw him, she _was_ him, standing over their teammates' bloody corpses. His fault, it was his fault, his subconscious screamed at hers. Their friends, their family, all dead because he had lost control, because he hadn't fought hard enough, he had _failed_ them. She didn't want to see anymore, but it kept coming, and in the gory crimson tangle of familiar bodies that lay before them, his eyes lit on a shock of white hair. Desperate, he lunged for it. _Ororo?_ Rogue asked, but he showed her how wrong she was as he freed her own lifeless body from the others.

" _No no no no…_ " he had moaned over and over, pressing his bare skin against hers, trying his best to trigger her uncontrollable power. _"Don't you leave me, darlin'!"_

Beneath the pain, beneath the grief, she was shocked to feel something else from him, something so strong and true after fifty years gone by. Logan had loved her. The wave of memories continued to crash over her, and the scene moved from the horror of the X-Men's last stand to two friends who had become so much more. In the reality of their icy Tibetan tomb, she gasped and scrambled out from beneath his heavy body, her own now healed. In Logan's world, she and Remy had never fixed what had broken between them because Rogue, _his_ Rogue, had found comfort in the arms of the Wolverine. No wonder this Logan had hated her. Seeing her, alive and whole, happy with someone else, had torn open wounds a half century old and buried beneath a ton of dirt. So much had been different in his world, but so much was the same.

Rogue remembered the night he was showing her, the night it had all changed for _them_ , it had begun the same for her. A fight with Remy, like always in the early days. She had been crying on the balcony at Xavier's school, softly so no one else would hear her, but then she never could hide anything from Logan. He had come up next to her, puffing on his cigar, and leaned over the railing. His burly hand had found hers.

 _"You need someone who messes up your lipstick, darlin', not your mascara,"_ he had said to her.

In her world, she had laughed through her tears and called him out for stealin' a line from a movie, and she and Wolverine had shared a brew and a game of pool. In his? Oh, Lord, she tried not to see, tried not to feel it, but his memories, his senses were like a kick to the gut…in his reality, Logan had decided to act on feelings he had held inside for so long. Despite her powers raging out of control, he had taken her face in his hands and kissed her. To her surprise, his Rogue had let him. Her powers had knocked him out instantly, but he had shown her just how much he cared her, how much he was willing to fight for her. Their life together had been cut brutally short by his own claws, but his love for her had never died.

The grip of his mind on hers lessened, and in the cold and dark tomb beneath the Tibetan temple, Logan stirred. She could see his bleary eyes finding focus thanks to the enhanced senses they still shared.

"Darlin'…" he mumbled and held out a shaking hand towards her. "Are you…?"

She shoved herself away from him, stopped by the wreckage and rubble trapping them, her throat dry. "Why didn't you tell me?" she whispered savagely.

"How could I?"

He didn't have to, she felt it. _His_ Rogue.

The heavy silence between them was broken by a roar overhead, and the danger they were still facing snapped into focus. There was no room to maneuver if Vargas and their brainwashed friends attacked again, but a familiar and welcome scent emerged on the edge of the new fallen snow. Two hundred tons of rubble lifted, and the shining red and gold armor of Iron Man twinkled in the morning sun.

"Somebody call for an Uber?" Tony Stark raised the armor's faceplate and grinned at them. The billionaire's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Whoa, it's called Just for Men, Logan, you might want to look into it. Just how long have you guys been down here, anyway?"

* * *

Forge's newest toy deposited them in Fence's back room as promised, but Remy still silently counted all of his fingers and toes, and grinned when he caught Bobby doing the same.

Drake shrugged. "Prototype? Never really liked that word. What now? We goin' after Rogue and Wolverine, or what?"

Remy exhaled loudly through his nose and pursed his lips. Fence was already booting up his computers, Jean activating the mini-cerebro that seemed to have found a new home in John's bakery. Before Ororo had kicked them all out of X-Haven, they had used Papa Cerebro to do a worldwide scan for their missing teammates. Remy knew it wouldn't track Rogue's fluctuating signal any better than the Baby Cerebro had, but Wolverine should have been a no-brainer. Unfortunately, they had come up with big fat nothing, which only cemented for Remy where they had gone. Tibet and that damned cloaked temple. Now that they knew Forge's toy worked, they needed to teleport there as soon as possible, but his friends had been surviving on cat naps and junk food for the last couple days and the exhaustion was beginning to show. Though he desperately wanted to chase after Anna, he knew everyone needed a few human minutes before they hit the ground running.

A feeling of déjà vu sent Remy spinning in circles. How long had it been? A handful of weeks since they had nailed that bastard Vargas the first time? He felt like he was stuck in the movie _Groundhog Day_ , going over and over the same steps until he got them right, and he mentally prepared himself to head back to what was left of Apocalypse's temple. What affect would it have on him this time?

Fence lifted his head towards Remy and the man's cybernetic eye swiveled. "I can set the auto scans again for Wolverine, but maybe we can force it to look for those anomalies we attributed to Rogue just to be sure on their location. Shouldn't take long, and while that's running, we can scrounge up some grub."

Bobby's face brightened. "Would grub mean bacon covered cupcakes, by chance?" he waggled his eyebrows at Fence, who nodded and pointed towards the entrance to Sugar.

"In the real walk-in cooler. Upper left shelf."

A gleeful Bobby sprinted for the shop and Jean stood and followed.

"I'll get some coffee going," she said.

The joke about managing to make a pot of coffee without breaking anything this time died on Remy's lips when he caught sight of Jean's face. There were lines around her green eyes, and the girl looked more like the woman he had known than he had wanted to acknowledge, something in her newfound determination, the set of her jaw…sometimes he missed the old days, even stick up the ass Scott Summers. What he wouldn't give to go back, just for a day. Too many lost friends and things left unsaid, but he wouldn't let it be that way with Anna.

He shoved the thought away when his cell phone vibrated in his trenchcoat pocket. Remy pulled it out and frowned at Captain America's number onscreen, but answered it anyway.

"What can I do for you, Captain?" It seemed like every phone conversation he had with the old man ended in bad news, so Remy readied himself for the worst.

"I think the question is, what can I do for you, son?"

"Weren't you an ice cube during the Kennedy administration, mon frère?" Remy kidded, still unable to gauge where their conversation was headed.

Steve laughed, which Remy took as a good sign. "I think some of _my people_ ," Remy could practically hear the air quotes, "found something you may be looking for. A couple somethings, actually. Thought maybe you'd like to come down to Unity's HQ and take them home?"

Remy had to sit down and Fence eyed him suspiciously, but Remy waved the big man away. "Oh? You don't say?"

"Tony was doing a flyby on that mess in Tibet, and imagine his surprise when he found two wayward mutants…"

Springing from his chair, Remy made for the bakery's front entrance, grabbing Bobby by the collar on the way out.

* * *

"Swanky digs, DaCosta!" James Proudstar, the former linebacker and member of X-Force known as Warpath slapped a burly hand on the back of the average sized man who barely reached up to his chest.

Roberto DaCosta, Sunspot, grimaced yet managed to keep his balance. "Yes, it has been a struggle, but things are finally coming together."

"Struggle?" Tabitha Smith, Boom Boom, raised an eyebrow over a pair of pink aviators. "Yeah, like, I'm sure you chipped your manicure. You've always been such a pull yourself up by your bootstraps kind of guy."

Winking, Sunspot offered his elbow. "Of course those boots would be handmade Italian leather, no? Settling our base of operations here has been difficult, that much is true, but those billion dollar trust funds certainly helped soften the blow."

The trio continued their tour of Avengers Island, floating thirteen miles off of California's coast, home to the newly repurposed scientific organization A.I.M. and a team of Earth's mightiest heroes led and organized by Sunspot. The sprawling facility was a base for scientists, researchers, and a rotating roster of Avengers, and Roberto DaCosta had been instrumental in bringing the idea to life. He steered them from the scientific buildings towards the administrative wing and his private office.

James paused at the top of the steps before entering the building. "All joking aside, Bobby, with the mists and everything else that's been going on, you're doing really good work, but I don't think we're here for the nickel tour, am I right?"

"Am I that obvious?" Roberto grinned, but James shrugged his broad shoulders in response.

"Only to people who've known you half your life. Don't worry, I'm sure everybody else'll still fall for your crap."

Tabitha frowned, and the petite blonde pulled her arm free from Roberto's grasp. "Wait, what? Am I missing something here?"

"Usually," James teased, but Boom Boom put her hands on her slim hips and stuck out her tongue.

"Piss off, Jimmy," she growled then turned to Roberto. "Spit it out, 'Berto!"

Roberto straightened his thousand dollar silk tie and gestured for the door. "Of course. There is much to discuss, but I would prefer to do it in private." In mirror image moves, his companions crossed their arms over their chests and dug in their heels. Roberto, born and bred for the subtlety of corporate espionage and hostile takeovers, sighed dramatically. "Very well. I asked you both here to offer you jobs."

Tabitha and James said nothing, and stared at Roberto with identical looks of doubt on their faces, but DaCosta continued his sales pitch unperturbed. "The world has changed and we must change with it. That is precisely what I am hoping to achieve on this island. A.I.M., once a criminal organization, has evolved into Avengers' Idea Mechanics, no longer pursuing world domination but broadening its horizons, making the world it once threatened into a much better place for all species. I need help to accomplish our rather lofty goals, and to do that I need good people, people I know I can trust. I can think of few that I trust more or that are better suited to the task than you two."

James scraped a hand through his glossy shoulder length hair and frowned. "I don't know. I've kind of had enough of living on an island base, y'know? Didn't work out so well last time."

Roberto held his hands wide. "I understand your hesitation, but this will not be another Utopia. I would never ask you to compromise your principles, James. That was Cyclops's mistake."

Squaring his considerable jaw, James exhaled and, more gracefully than his muscular body should have allowed, shoved through the revolving glass doors behind them. "Right, you've always been such an upstanding citizen…" he muttered over his shoulder as the doors closed.

He turned to his companion. "What about you, Tabby? The X-Men are nowhere to be found. Charles Xavier trained us as the next generation of heroes. Are you ready to heed the call, like Sam and I have?"

Tabitha winced, and Roberto saw his mistake. Sam Guthrie, Cannonball, had been Roberto DaCosta's best friend and teammate practically since the two had met, he and Sam had even left the X-Men to become Avengers together, but Sam had also been the love of Tabitha's life until Roberto had come between the couple. He and Sam had long since patched it up, but he hadn't bothered to ask Sam where he and Tabitha had left things.

"I'm sorry, Tabitha. I should have realized that you and Sam and I couldn't…"

She lifted a hand and touched the side of his tanned cheek. "It's okay. Really. I'm happy for Sam. We're good. Let's go find Jimmy, though, and you can try your Xavier speech on him." She held out her elbow and Roberto steered her through the building's opulent entryway.

"Mr. DaCosta?" The receptionist stood at their approach and handed him a tablet. "Dr. Brashear delivered the report you were asking about."

"Thank you, Heather," he quickly queued up the tablet and his eyes skimmed the text. Dr. Brashear was as concise as always. His team had been tasked with studying the Terrigen Mist clouds, hoping through their research to find some way to contain or destroy the vapors that were terrorizing mutantkind. Initial results were promising, it appeared the mists were susceptible to shifts in the Earth's magnetic field. Dr. Brashear's team was probing further and would keep him apprised of the situation, but Roberto thought it may be prudent to send some of the Avengers to obtain data up close.

"I directed Mr. Proudstar to your office, sir." The receptionist smiled broadly, and Roberto returned the grin and winked at the woman, then ushered Tabitha into the elevator. Tabby flipped her shades up on her head and rolled her eyes, leaning back in silence against the mirrored wall. Roberto wondered belatedly if maybe Sam Guthrie wasn't his friend's only problem.

"Is it me you don't want to work with?" he blurted out.

She met his dark eyes and chewed her bottom lip, slick with pink gloss that coordinated with her sunglasses. "No. Yes." Her crystal blue eyes darted away. "Maybe. I just…I can't do complicated right now, y'know?"

He nodded and the doors slid open. He did know. He and Tabitha's little fling had almost cost them both a man that meant the world to them, and it was a mistake he was in no hurry to repeat. "I understand, and I agree. Things are way too stressful right now to add…"

There was a loud crash, the sound of breaking glass down the hall, and Roberto's wide eyes met their match in Tabitha's.

"Jimmy!" She shrieked and they legged it towards the continuing and alarming sounds of breaking furniture. Sunspot allowed his mutant power to harness the energy of the sun to flow over him. His first thought was to call security, but if James was trashing his office, Roberto hardly wanted to escalate an already touchy situation. However, if James was throwing a tantrum, he was paying for the furniture, every blasted penny!

They burst through the reinforced wooden doors and froze, not just in shock, but to Roberto's horror, he found he was unable to move a muscle in his body no matter how hard he tried, and it seemed Tabitha was in similar dire straits. Before them, James Proudstar was on his knees, the violet flash of a psychic knife thrust out through his forehead. Behind him, the familiar face of the X-Man Psylocke, her fingers knotted into James's pitch black hair, stared blankly at them. When she released her hold, an unconscious James dropped to the floor like a ton of brawny bricks.

"Please, join us," a deep voice echoed from within the office, more specifically from behind Roberto's desk. Their bodies were tugged forward, the sensation familiar to Roberto, and his blood boiled when his eyes sought the source of their immobility. How many times since his childhood had their former teacher Magneto betrayed them? He struggled in vain, but the shadowy figure that rose from his own chair and stepped towards them wasn't Magneto. A strange gurgle escaped Tabitha's throat and Roberto swallowed his own scream. The creature that loomed over James Proudstar's lifeless body resembled the villain Apocalypse, a monster they were all too acquainted with, but something was not quite right, the face changed…

The man, dressed neck to toe in all black, removed the matching gloves he wore, and yanked Warpath's limp and heavy body to its knees.

"Yes," the being hissed, " _these_ are worthy." He curled his bare fingers around the skin of James's throat, and Roberto could only watch, helpless, knowing his turn was coming, ashamed that he could do nothing to save Tabitha.

* * *

Outside Schaefer Theatre, Bobby and Remy had to walk through a line of Avengers' fans seeking autographs into a gift shop plastered with Deadpool's masked face to find Rogers. The old man wasn't quite as jovial in person as he had seemed on the phone. Cap nodded in greeting and led them deeper into the abandoned theatre that currently served as the Avengers Unity Squad's headquarters, the team's exploits bankrolled by Deadpool.

Remy was jumping out of his skin and had to fight to slow his steps. "Rogue. Is she..?"

"She's fine, son. Disagreeable as always, but I think that has more to do with the healing factor she absorbed from her…partner."

Theatres always gave Remy the creeps, bad memories tended to do that, and he wanted to get out as quickly as possible, but Steve stopped in the middle of the aisle between the broken seats and levelled eyes of steel at him. "I thought we agreed to keep her out of this, Gambit. There's no need to put your wife at risk, especially if this monster is gunning straight for her. She needs to be protected. The Avengers are more than capable…"

"She's a grown ass woman!" Bobby shouted and stepped forward, but Remy laid a hand on Iceman's shoulder. He knew Bobby was one of Rogue's best friends and he appreciated the support, but Remy was her husband and that made him her biggest champion. He returned Cap's glare with burning red on black eyes.

"I was wrong not to tell her what was going on. This affects us all, but her especially. That bastard is never gonna rest so long as he's alive, and you're right, she's in his crosshairs. But you know as well as I that she's never gonna hide, even with a target like that painted on her back."

Cap's wrinkled jaw squared and he nodded and moved them up onto the stage and behind it. The theatre had been cobbled into living quarters and the bare bones facilities necessary to run a superhero team, including a crudely outfitted infirmary. Through a large pane of glass, Remy could see Pietro Maximoff fussing over a surprisingly dusty Rogue, who swatted Quicksilver's healing hands away. Despite how angry Remy was at her, he laughed, loving her even more for always giving Pietro a hard time.

"Was she hurt?" Bobby asked and Remy turned to the Captain. She wasn't currently injured, that much was obvious, but he couldn't believe he hadn't thought to ask if she had been. Cap nodded.

"Someone brought that stone temple down right on their heads. Rogue absorbed Logan's powers, so whatever injuries she sustained took care of themselves, but I wanted her checked out anyway."

"Who would have…?"

"That son of a bitch Magneto, that's who."

The trio turned their heads to the chainsaw rip of Logan's voice coming down the hall towards them, just as Pietro glided from the infirmary.

" _'That son of a bitch Magneto…'_ " Pietro repeated, sighing contentedly, "You have no idea how wonderful it is not to take such comments personally!" The speedster jabbed his chin towards Rogue, sitting on a table and sulking. "You may want to give her a few minutes. Her usually charming disposition has been replaced by something decidedly more 'get off my lawn'."

Logan growled and popped his claws, but Rogers inserted himself between the men while Bobby hid a snicker behind his hand. "Take it easy, men." Steve thrust forward a hand for Wolverine to shake. "Logan, it's good to see you, wrinkles and all."

Retracting his claws, Logan returned Steve's shake wholeheartedly. "Likewise, Wing Head."

Remy ignored them and pushed open the door to the infirmary, closing it softly behind him. His eyes found Anna's, but she looked away and he could see her bottom lip tremble. One of the first things he had learned about Rogue was that she had the world's worst poker face. Everything she ever felt was written all over her face, and today was no exception. Remy hopped up next to her, and his hand found hers and squeezed. He needed to tell her what had happened in X-Haven's locker room, but he couldn't find the words. It hurt that they were already falling into their old habits, destructive tendencies that had torn their relationship apart over and over. Sometimes he could see why, on the surface, people found them so mismatched. They were the embodiment of that old cliché of opposites attracting. He was so closed off, so secretive, while she practically screamed everything out loud, but there was so much below the surface that connected them. They were both surely stubborn, always convinced they were right, but also fiercely loyal. They loved with all their hearts and souls and would die to protect those close to them if that was what it took, but their marriage was off to a hell of a start so far.

She buried her head against his shoulder, and through the glass Remy saw Drake looking in on them. Bobby nodded, and Remy watched Iceman clear the others from the hall to give the reunited couple some privacy. Remy smiled at the departing Bobby. He was a good man and a good friend, he cared about Rogue almost as much as Remy did.

"I screwed up," Rogue mumbled, and Remy swallowed the first sharp rebuke that leapt to his tongue. No need for him to chastise her, he knew she was already doing that to herself.

"Oui," he said instead.

"I shouldn't have left without you."

"Oui. So why did you?"

She pulled away from his shoulder and scrubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms. "Because I'm an idiot, that's why," she groaned and turned away, but with a finger under her chin he forced her to meet his eyes.

"Non, that's not why. Try again."

She curled her fingers back into his with a scrunched up face, that stubbornness taking hold. "Because I can't bear the thought of you gettin' hurt again. Seein' you changed like that, into Death, it tore me apart! You went to Apocalypse in the first place because of me, and Vargas brought it all back to the surface. This is all my fault, and I'd give anything to keep you out of it, to keep you safe. Lorna and Shiro, maybe they're right to stay away from him. I know you've got it under control now, but what happens when you get close to him again?"

He still couldn't say it out loud, that he had felt Death inside him again. "You can't keep me safe, chere, it's not possible. I could step out of this theatre right now and get hit by a car, or…"

"Don't you understand? If anything happened to you, Remy, I'd _die_."

He held her eyes, not letting her look away, but still unable to say the words. How could he tell her? It felt like he had failed her. "And you think I don't feel the same way?" he asked fiercely. There was so much guilt and blame twined between them, so much pain inflicted, so many good intentions that had backfired. He had gone to Apocalypse long ago to keep Anna and the X-Men safe, and had almost killed her with his bare hands because of it. They had hurt each other so many times in the name of love, but it would always be worth it. Their love was the kind of love you would risk everything for.

"Told you a long time ago, cherie" he breathed against her lips, "My life ain't worth livin' wit' out you in it." He reached into an inner pocket of his jacket and produced her wedding rings, slipping them back into place. "These mean now and forever, we're a team. Everythin' the world throws at us, we face it _together_."

Anna smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. In those emerald pools there was still a mess of guilt that threatened to drown him if he swam in them too long. Remy wasn't mad at her, not really, he just wanted to make sure she understood where he was coming from, to see how she would feel if their positions were reversed, if he had kept her from a fight for his soul.

"It's okay, Anna. I'll get over it. We'll move on." He swallowed and exhaled through his nose. "No point beatin' yourself up over this, and...there's something I need to…"

Her eyes flicked away again and there was that look, not just guilty, but embarrassed, ashamed even.

"Chere, what is it? What happened?"

She stood abruptly and started pacing in front of him, giving Remy the opportunity to take a good look at her. She was covered in the dust and grime of the ancient temple, and her costume had been cut to ribbons, most notably by a huge hole through her abdomen that was mirrored through the back of her hooded jacket.

"Anna…" his voice rose in alarm, but she kept pacing and started talking with her hands, never a good sign.

"We…we teleported into that temple, to get that bastard's scent and to see if there was something the Avengers missed, but we got jumped by Warren…and Erik."

 _"Erik?"_ Remy's voice rose an angry pitch, but she stopped and held up a hand.

"Don't start on him, Remy. Neither of 'em was in control of themselves. Vargas…" she exhaled loudly and ran a hand through the frightfully tangled mess of curls on top of her head, sending a puff of dusty smoke into the air. "Vargas inherited some of me from that machine, Remy. He can steal powers from other people, and used it on Vanisher and Mesmero before they died. He's controlling Erik and Warren and Betsy, Lord know who else…" She was agitated and Remy stood and stopped her pacing by grabbing her shoulders.

"We know, chere. We got all this from Raven before Stormy kicked us out of X-Haven."

"Momma? Is she…?"

"Still unconscious. Jeannie had to read her mind."

Rogue frowned and Remy saw a sudden flash of anger. "Ororo kicked you out?"

"Yeah. She and Illyana sealed the entrance to Limbo. No in or out 'til this mess is over. Don' change the subject. L'Ange and Magneto attacked you?"

That guilty look smeared away her anger. "Right. We weren't doin' half bad against 'em, all things considered, but Erik pulled together a metal spear and sent it straight through my gut, then our fight brought the place down around our ears."

Remy held her out and found the jagged hole in the stomach of her costume. " _Merde."_ His fingers traced the creamy skin exposed, but Rogue flinched.

"Don't," she snarled, and Remy was taken aback by the ferocity of that single word.

"Don' what? Touch you? Worry 'bout you? Mon dieu, if Logan hadn't been there…" Her cheeks flushed a deep crimson. "Anna? What is it? What's wrong, chere?"

She started shaking and the blush crept down her neck and beyond. "I…I was hurt…barely conscious…and Logan was screamin' at me to take his powers, so I did, but…I was sloppy…and…I didn't mean to, but…" She closed her eyes and shuddered. "I took everything."

"Everything?" Remy reached for her shoulders again but she stiffened and shoved him away, hard.

" _Everything_ ," she whispered hoarsely. "His memories…so much pain, regret…he's so lost, so angry…he killed them, Remy, he killed _us_ , all of us…"

A cold sweat slid over his skin, but Rogue kept talking, he could see her eyes flickering beneath closed lids like she was replaying what she had taken from Logan.

"It wasn't his fault, someone was controlling him, like Vargas did to me, but the guilt, the shame…he's so _alone_ …" She stifled a sob behind her hand and Remy tried to pull her close again, but she shook her head. "You don't understand!" she cried. "He buried it all, in the back of his mind, like he couldn't bear to remember, didn't want to be reminded, but I found it, I found _her_ …" Anna's voice was raw, and the red of her cheeks had deepened. "I tried to let it go…I tried not to see, but I felt it, I felt everything, every kiss between them, every whisper...he _loved_ her…and he _killed_ her!"

"Her?" Remy asked and Rogue's tortured laugh stopped his heart.

" _His_ Rogue."


	17. Chapter 17

All characters owned by Marvel Comics

* * *

 **Chapter Seventeen**

Remy waited until Rogue was calmed down and distracted with a shower before he slipped away, following the smell of cigar smoke in a silently building fury.

Logan was standing at the edge of the stage and puffing away on his stogie. He didn't turn around, but lifted his chin towards Gambit and grunted, which only enraged Remy further.

"We need to talk, _mon ami_." Remy was trying to control his temper, those icy fingers clawing him apart from the inside, but couldn't keep himself from spitting the term of endearment.

Logan raised an eyebrow and turned, looking Remy up and down. "S'pose we do," he grunted and stubbed his cigar out on the scuffed wooden floor with the heel of his heavy boot.

Remy stalked forward, his hands balled into fists at his sides. "What the hell were you trying to pull in Tibet?" he hissed.

The lines pulled tight around Logan's eyes. "You mean besides saving her life?"

"You know _exactly_ what I mean."

The two were chest to chest and Remy fought hard to stop the rage spinning his stomach in circles, but the betrayal rolled off of him in waves. This man had been his friend, at least another version of him. How long had Logan harbored feelings for Rogue? Had theirs felt the same way but kept it locked away? Maybe he hadn't kept it locked away, maybe there had been something there that Remy never noticed. Logan had made a play for the older Jean Grey, for Ororo, why not Anna?

"She's my wife!" Remy roared.

Logan flinched at the 'w' word, but his voice was laced with venom. "Hey, bub, she's the one that went pokin' around uninvited. Not my fault she got more than she bargained for."

He couldn't swing first, Remy kept telling himself, no matter how pissed he was, he couldn't swing first, but his fist twitched at his side. "That's pretty fucking cruel. She cares 'bout you, and you twisted her all around wit' your warped memories 'til she don' know which was is up…tried to make her into somebody she ain't…you used her!"

 _"I_ used her?" The wrinkled face in front of him became one of loathing and disgust. "You son of a bitch! You're the master fucking manipulator! Least my Rogue was smart enough to see through all your fucking bullshit!"

The monster inside spoke before Remy could stop him. "Was that before or after you gutted her wit' your claws, m'sieu?"

The image Death conjured nearly made him vomit, but it struck the right chord in Logan. The man's face contorted the split second before his fist bee-lined for Remy's skull. Logan had swung first, and it was all the license Remy needed. He deftly dodged the punch and delivered an elbow to Wolverine's tender abdomen, then a kinetically assisted throat punch, courtesy of a charge to Remy's gloves, sent Logan flying off the stage, his bulky frame splintering rows of chairs on its way through. An inhuman roar erupted from the audience and Remy lit a brace of cards as Logan crawled back onto stage in a fighting stance, but the cards burned black. He was losing it, would lose her, if he couldn't control himself.

"You piece of shit," Logan howled. "You don't deserve her!"

Remy thought of Anna, and his eyes flashed. "True that, and I be workin' every day for the rest of our lives 'til I do."

Logan lunged and Remy sidestepped. Catching Logan under his arm, he used the heavier man's bulk and momentum to flip him over, but felt the excruciating heat of adamantium claws slash through his trenchcoat and whisper across his hip. Rolling back to his feet, Logan rounded towards Remy again, but a shield of red, white, and blue thunked into the wooden stage between them.

 _"Enough!"_

Remy and Logan froze, but neither man took their eyes from the other.

"What is going on here?" Captain America strode onstage with a spryness that belied his ninety years and retrieved his fabled shield.

"None 'o your flamin' business, Wing Head," Logan snarled.

A fuming Rogers swung his true blue eyes to Remy. "Gambit?"

Remy felt the thick liquid heat of blood trailing down his leg, and the pain pulled him back. "Jus' a little disagreement, Captain."

Rogers pursed his lips into a thin line. "I suggest you get Pietro to check out that little disagreement. From the looks of it, it needs stitches. Then the both of you come up to the conference room. We've got a situation."

* * *

Where once views of the lush green lawns of Professor Xavier's estate filled the windows of the kitchen, they had been replaced by something out of her worst nightmares. No sun, no sky greeted her eyes, just brimstone and fire and monsters that wanted nothing more than their immortal souls. Ororo shivered, a sensation foreign to someone supposedly immune to temperature shifts, but that had been on Earth, not at the gates of hell. She was hardly a believer of Christian theology, after all she had met the spirit of Mother Earth, the Goddess, as a young woman while walking the grasslands of Africa, but one look through the glass would surely convert the Buddha himself.

This could not be their permanent solution, hiding, removing themselves to let the rest of the world tear each other apart. In bringing mutants here, had she fallen into the same trap that had destroyed Scott? He had sought to isolate them, to shield them, but in doing so had gathered them all together like lambs to the slaughter. The children needed rain showers and summer breezes, stars in the sky and grass beneath their feet, not a refugee camp, and she herself needed the connection to Earth and its weather patterns. The spell Illyana had placed around the school grounds was little more than a cage, and nights like this, Ororo could feel the walls closing in.

"Up early or never went to bed?"

The voice, warm and worn and smiling at the edges, still had the power to raise her heartrate even after all of the years and all the space between them. Ororo turned to face a lab-rumpled Forge. The lines around his dark eyes were deep, and he pulled out a chair and sank heavily into it, scratching his cheek and smoothing his moustache flat. Long ago, the Cheyenne inventor had asked Ororo to marry him, but had taken back the proposal, assuming he already knew her answer. She would always wonder what her life would have been like if he had given her the opportunity to say yes. The pair had only recently returned to each other's lives and were giving friendship another chance.

Ororo gracefully took the seat next to him. "A little of both, I am afraid. I did nothing but toss and turn, and decided it best to give up and greet the dawn, such as it is. Goddess knows there is enough to attend to."

Forge leaned back and stretched his legs out on the tiled floor towards her. "Have you slept at all the last few days?"

She raised a perfectly arched snow white eyebrow. "Have you?"

His wrinkled t-shirt and jeans appeared identical to the outfit he had been wearing yesterday, perhaps even the day before.

"Guilty as charged. Difference is, I'm working. You're just fretting."

"I do not fret," she said sharply and his mouth turned up in a tired smile.

"Oh, yes you do. Like a pro."

"Hardly." Pushing her chair back, she stood and marched towards the stove and the hot water still in the teakettle.

He turned his head slightly to catch her glare over his shoulder. "Keep telling yourself that, sweetheart."

If one could ferociously prepare two mugs of tea, Ororo managed it, and slammed the cups onto the table in an uncharacteristic display of emotion for the usually stoic weather witch. She returned to her seat and Forge tucked his legs in and shifted to lean his wiry body over the steaming mug, dunking the tea bag in absentminded silence. Ororo crossed one long leg over the other and watched the steam rise in swirling patterns only she could see, trying to control her rising irritation. The atmosphere of Limbo did not respond to her emotions as readily as Earth's, but she still tended to keep her stronger feelings in check. Somedays, however, it was a struggle, especially when she wished nothing more than to wipe the smirk from Forge's face.

"As if there is not plenty to keep me awake at night," she groused into her tea.

"Didn't say there wasn't, but there's one thing in particular keeping you up."

There was that smirk again, so maddening yet endearing at the same time.

"Oh? Would you care to enlighten me?"

The smirk disappeared, replaced by sadness and a sympathetic hand over hers. "Gambit."

Her eyes, the crystal blue of clear skies, averted his gaze. How well Forge still knew her. She loved Remy LeBeau like the brother she never had. They were both orphans who had found purpose and people who loved them within the ranks of the X-Men, and in his time of need, she had turned him away, cast him out, not once, but twice! She could still see the hurt in Remy's eyes when she closed her own. Did he understand how hard it had been to say no to him? How desperately she wished it could have been any other way? She loved Rogue, too, the fiery, tenacious girl she had watched grow into a self-assured, beautiful woman. Ororo would gladly give her life for either of them, but she was needed elsewhere, there were so many others that depended on her, and no one else to stand in her place. Could Remy ever forgive her? Could she forgive herself?

The large, warm hand covering hers, the palm rough with work-worn callouses, squeezed. "It's not too late, Wind-Rider."

Her eyes filled with surprising tears, and a flash of lightning illuminated the landscape crawling with demons. "Have a care, Maker. Illyana has cast her spell, and after how I have treated Remy in his time of need, I would consider myself fortunate if he did not spit in my face when next we meet."

"Hey," he leaned forward and tugged on her hand. "Don't do that." With a finger under her chin, he turned her face towards him. "Have a little faith. In him, and in yourself."

She sandwiched her hand over his. "I thought you did not care for Remy?"

"I don't. He's a dick. But that doesn't mean I don't respect that he's loyal to you."

"It does not matter. It is too late."

"What, you think tall, blonde and Russian is the only one who knows her way around a good spell?"

Ororo inhaled a sharp hiss of air. Forge had been raised from birth to wield the magic of his tribe, but in his youth he had never taken the position of Shaman seriously, his disrespect for the power that flowed through him nearly bringing about the X-Men's deaths and the end of the world. Maturity had brought a deep reverence for the magic that was his birthright. Ororo knew it was something he would not offer lightly.

"Just say the word," he said, his face carved in stone. "If you want to go home, I'll get you there."

* * *

Remy winced and lowered himself into the beat-up office chair on wheels. He had hardly felt a thing while Pietro had stitched up his hip wounds at lightning speed, but now the slashes burned with his every move, despite the painkillers Quicksilver had gleefully stabbed him with. Logan had barely tagged him, and Remy shuddered to think how badly he could have been hurt had Wolverine connected any deeper, or how badly Wolverine could have been hurt if he had given in to Death. From across the second hand conference table, he saw the corner of Logan's mouth twitch slightly into a triumphant grin, and Remy had to stop himself from jumping over the table and continuing their brawl, but almost as if he could read their minds, Steve Rogers glowered at them from in front of the room. Most of the Unity Squad were out on other business, but Rogers and Pietro were still holding down the fort, and Remy had called Jean and Fence to join them, concerned for the pair's safety alone in the bakery.

"Clint, anything new to report?" Captain America turned his attention back to a laptop perched open on the table. Onscreen, the Avenger and master archer Hawkeye, Clint Barton, removed a pair of sunglasses and wearily rubbed his eyes.

"Unfortunately, no. Security cameras in DaCosta's office were disabled, the eggheads think by an EM pulse. We've got forensics sweeping the room to see what they can dig up, but so far they've got zilch. Nobody saw or heard a damned thing."

In the chair next to him, Rogue leaned forward. "And the kids? Has there been any change?" Her hands gripped the edge of the table and Remy felt the tension in her body.

Barton's grim mask softened. "Sorry, Rogue. Roberto, Miss Smith, and Mr. Proudstar are all still unconscious."

Remy found her knee under the table and squeezed, but felt her flinch away from his touch. A few hours ago, a West coast division of the Avengers, headed by the former New Mutant Roberto DaCosta, had been attacked by unknown assailants, leaving Roberto and two of his former teammates unresponsive. Their unconscious conditions bore the calling card of Rogue's power, and Remy could see his wife taking all the blame on her slim shoulders.

"Don' be jumpin' to conclusions, mon amour," he whispered. She didn't answer, but the muscles along her jaw twitched.

Logan's harsh voice cut across the room. "Don't patronize her, Cajun. Three mutants and they're all unconscious? Security cameras shut down by magnetism? Doesn't take a flamin' genius to work out who's responsible."

Almost as a reflex, Remy went for the pocket of his trenchcoat, but Cap raised a hand.

"As much as I hate to admit it, I have to agree with Rogue and Wolverine's assessment. This attack fits with Vargas's pattern. The situation has become too dangerous to assume otherwise, at least until the evidence tells us they're wrong. But, Clint? Keep an open mind and let us know if anything new comes up, and let us know immediately of any change in our colleagues' conditions."

"Will do, Cap." Barton saluted and grinned wryly before ending the call.

Steve sighed and looked around the table. "There's something else that you all need to see. The government is trying to keep this quiet and out of the news so as not to start a panic that could lead to another round of anti-mutant riots, but Fence stumbled on it while searching for new leads." He opened up a link and pushed play. The dark, grainy view of a civilian highway was pulled from a street camera miles away from the scene, but Steve zoomed in, and they all watched in silent, helpless horror as Magneto drifted into view and attacked a semi, causing a chain reaction that swallowed countless other vehicles. The Master of Magnetism peeled open the semi's trailer like an overly ripe banana, and Psylocke and Archangel popped into the frame to assist him in emptying its cargo. It was difficult to watch, but in the flickering flames of the burning wreckage, Remy's insides squirmed at the silhouette that stepped into view.

"Holy shit," Bobby muttered from the other side of Rogue. No jokes, no funny names, just Vargas, taller, broader, clad in a full body suit, striding towards the open semi. Magneto dropped to the ground, and he and Betsy started pulling figures from inside the damaged trailer.

"Are those…people?" Remy choked as each seeming lifeless body was brought before the monster.

"Mutants," Rogers replied. "The truck was owned by the Someday Corporation, a cryogenics company offering its customers an escape from the M-Pox."

Rogue inhaled sharply as onscreen, Vargas removed his gloves and held his hands to the exposed skin of each mutant brought to him. His face, looking like an Apocalypse cosplay worthy of a comic book convention, spread in a blissful satisfaction at each contact. Rogue shoved back her chair and bolted for the door, and Rogers paused the video. Remy tried to stand and follow her, but his hip screamed in protest and he had to take a deep breath before he rose. Surprisingly, it was the senior Avenger who made it to the door first.

"I'll talk to her," he called over his shoulder. "I want your thoughts by the time we come back."

Remy dropped back into his chair and rested his elbows on the table, running his hands down the rough stubble covering his face, and stared at the image frozen onscreen. They needed to watch the sequence again to study it, but the thought nauseated him. At least the sight of Vargas hadn't triggered anything inside him. As much as he hadn't wanted to believe it, it now seemed pretty fucking obvious that Vargas had hit DaCosta and the others, and obvious what the villain was doing, using the power he had obtained from Rogue to steal other mutants' abilities. In theory, Rogue's absorption power made her one of the most powerful individuals in the world. With her own, she had access to anybody else's, permanently if she wanted, but she had always been squeamish about taking what didn't belong to her. Unfortunately, it seemed Vargas had no such scruples. It appeared it was open season on what was left of mutantkind. Maybe Stormy had made the right decision sealing off X-Haven. At least the rest of the kids would be safe from that son of a bitch.

"He's all covered up." Bobby's statement snapped Remy from his reverie.

"Yeah, so what?" Remy retorted. "Rogue always was, too, in case somebody touched her on accident."

Bobby turned his chair but jabbed a thumb back towards the computer. "Yeah, on accident, because she couldn't stop it. She only covered up because she _had_ to. Look, he's even wearing gloves!"

Understanding slapped Remy across the face. "He can't control it."

* * *

"I ain't in the mood for one'a your lectures, Steve."

Rogue had made it further into the theatre's office space before he had caught up to her, and it still surprised her to look at his face and see the white hair, the heavy lines and wrinkles instead of the all-American poster boy.

He smiled and that handsome grin was still there, just blurred at the edges. "That's just fine, Anna, because I wasn't really in the mood to give one."

Sighing, she dropped into a cubicle's seat and rested her elbows on her knees. Steve leaned against a desk and crossed his arms over his chest, and she shifted her gaze away, staring numbly at her hands, the hands that had caused so much heartache thanks to her mutant touch.

"I…I keep tellin' myself it's not my fault."

"It's not."

Tears stung her eyes and she bit the inside of her cheek to stop them, not wanting to show weakness in front of a man she had grown to admire despite their introduction a lifetime ago. "I know that. I do. Vargas kidnapped me, manipulated me for his own agenda."

"But?"

Her breath shook on the way out. " _But_ , this is because of me. Everythin' he's doin' is because of me and my powers. All those innocent people, and 'Berto and Tabby and James…Monet…"

Rogers knelt in front of her and his hands, still strong though knotted with age, wrapped comfortably around hers.

"Anna Marie, it's taken me a long time to understand that evil men will find any way possible to do evil things, it's just in their nature. If Vargas hadn't used you, he would have found some other way, hurt someone else. It's up to people like us, the good guys, to find a way to combat that evil."

She met those blue eyes and knew he got where she was coming from. The Red Skull and Captain America had been going after each other since before television, and though that villain's every scheme seemed to be aimed straight for Steve's heart, their connection could be viewed as one of convenience and circumstance. If Captain America had never been thawed out, the Red Skull would have been just as malicious and worked just as hard towards world domination. Thankfully they lived in a world where men like the one in front of her still existed to fight back against such tyranny.

He squeezed her hands. "So, question is, young lady, how are we going to stop him?"

Shaking her head, she pried her hands free from his grip. "No, I can't ask you do that." She stood abruptly. "This ain't your fight, Steve, your people are spread way too thin right now to get pulled into my mess."

He rose and laid a hand on her shoulder. "You are my people. You may have handed in your resignation, but that doesn't mean I don't consider you still part of this team."

Raising an eyebrow, her lips spread in a slow smirk. "Pretty sure that's what resignation means, sugar."

"Doesn't matter. You X-Men may think you have the family thing on lockdown, but the Avengers take care of their own. This creature poses a threat no one can ignore. It's past time for all of us, humans, mutants, and Inhumans, to stand together as one."

"Thought you said no lectures?" she teased and Steve laughed, the sound echoing through the room.

"That was a speech, not a lecture." He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her into his side. "You don't have to do this alone. We're with you."


	18. Chapter 18

All characters owned by Marvel Comics

* * *

 **Chapter Eighteen**

"Nervous?"

Ororo smoothed her costume's cape and sighed. "You are not?"

Forge shrugged from where he stood in the middle of the school's basketball court. Hardly the most sophisticated circle of power for a Shaman, but almost every square inch of Limbo was imbued with magic, all it required was the right hand to wield it. Much to Illyana Rasputin's irritation, Forge seemed up to the task. Magik stood silently, mirroring his position, pouting but determined to help despite some rather fiery protests.

"Nah," he replied. "Just like riding a bicycle." His dark eyes found hers. "Stop fretting. They'll be happy to see us, especially when they see the presents we're bringing."

The black wristband chafed her skin, and Storm unconsciously turned the bracelet around, ignoring the fretting comment. Stuffed in the pouches of Forge's belt were another dozen redesigned psychic dampeners, fresh from his laboratory.

"I wish I could have had more of 'em ready before they left," Forge frowned, "but I needed time to work out a few kinks. Took a little longer than I thought to synthesize enough non-ferrous material for their construction. The blasted things wouldn't do us any good if Magneto could rip 'em off with a wave of his hand, or if somebody with super strength could just snap them."

Illyana crossed her arms over her chest and scowled. " _I_ wish you would have made up your mind and just gone with Gambit's team in the first place. What was the point of my conjuring up a spell of protection if you turn right around and break it?"

"We're not breaking it," Forge replied, "We're squeezing through a crack, and then you're going to seal it behind us. Think of it as a security check."

Ororo brushed her hand down the girl's long blonde hair, marveling as she did sometimes how only a few short years ago Illyana had been her brother's little snowflake, only to have her world turned upside down by the lord of the very realm they now inhabited. "I know you and Peter will take good care of everyone here. Keep them safe for me, and we shall return when we are able. I am counting on you."

When Storm stepped into position, she, Illyana, and Forge formed a triangle, with Forge at the apex. Working together, Forge and Illyana had found a weakness in her spell, a chink in the armor they now intended to exploit. At first, Illyana had been furious at having her defensive spell picked apart by another sorcerer, but she had changed her attitude slightly, using the opportunity to strengthen her own skills under the tutelage of a new teacher. When they returned, Forge had promised to show the girl as much of the magic of his people as he was allowed, which had mollified Illyana's anger somewhat, but Ororo also knew the girl's coldness stemmed from anxiety. The fate of the student body and the school now rested on Magik's shoulders, but the girl was more than ready for the task.

"All right, ladies," Forge rubbed his hands together eagerly. "It this works like it's supposed to, we should materialize on what's left of Xavier's estate."

Finding Remy and Rogue and the others was proving to be a slight problem. They didn't know where that team was operating from, or where they were headed, and since the implementation of Illyana's spell, their communications link to the outside world had gone from difficult to impossible. There were a few places they could feasibly find them, including the Avengers' various bases of operations, but they could hardly drop in uninvited, and the spell they were working was hardly pinpoint accurate. They could materialize inside a wall or dangling over Fifth Avenue. Given how strained mutant/human relations were on Earth, they had decided on a more secluded location. Professor Xavier's ancestral estate had acres of cleared land surrounded by forest. From there, they could contact the others by more conventional means and join them.

"And if it does not work?" Ororo asked, but Forge laughed a loud bark of a laugh.

"Well, we're already halfway to hell, right?"

That smirk still in place, Forge spread his arms wide and began chanting, the words passionate, almost lyrical in their rise and fall. The longer he chanted, the brighter his body began to shimmer, then glow, the luminescence at first like a firefly on a summer's night. When Illyana added her voice to his, her incantations a harmony line, the firefly became the noonday sun, his body shining so brightly Ororo could not look directly at him. Her own body reflected the light and she felt a trembling spread from the pit of her stomach, then a tug on her soul that turned into a harder yank. With a blood-curdling cry, Forge clapped his hand in front of him, and Ororo felt herself burned down to her very essence, becoming a bright point of pure energy that winked out of Limbo. In the next heartbeat, she felt solid ground beneath her tingling feet.

"Ohhhhh…"

There was a groan and a heavy thud before she could focus enough to understand it was Forge who had hit the ground.

"Maker!" It was dark, night on Earth, but she found him in the unusually tall grass. They were on the grounds of the estate, that much she was sure, but it had gone wild with no one there to tend it. She turned him over and laid his head in her lap, and her long fingers brushed the dark hair back from his forehead. "Forge, are you…?"

"M'all right. Jus' need a minute to…catch my breath."

Leaning over, she dipped a light kiss onto his lips. She felt him smile, and couldn't help herself from smiling back. She had forgotten how much his moustache tickled. It was early spring, life just beginning anew, and she nearly wept at her connection to the Earth, so intense it threatened to overwhelm her. It was a new moon, but the blanket of stars slowly illuminated the nearby crater where the mansion had once stood. She had hated to rip everything free from the land and leave such a scar behind, but they had little choice at the time.

Her mutant abilities granted her a different view of the world than most would ever see. Storm saw the sky, the clouds, and winds as shifting patterns of energy, and, content, she observed their dance along the horizon while Forge gathered his strength. A sudden bright flare, a strange burst of energy, slashed across the night like a gaping wound and Ororo jumped in surprise, nearly toppling Forge from her lap.

"What?" he stirred, but she covered his mouth with her hand and leaned her head to his ear.

"Something is amiss," she whispered. "A concentration of energy near the abandoned foundation."

Forge moved to rise, but she gently pushed him down. "Stay. I will be right back." Even in the dim light she could see his angry glower, but he was still too weakened from working his magic to mount a decent argument. Crouching, she wove soundlessly through the tall grass towards the empty crater that had once served as the footing of the Jean Grey School. When they had evacuated the facilities to Limbo, they had taken everything, there should have been nothing electronic remaining, nothing that should have given off the magnetic resonance that intensified as she crept closer.

She had her answer in a matter of moments.

"As I suspected, Storm was extremely thorough in their evacuation." Magneto hovered just above the rim of the ugly blemish that the school had left behind. Floating around him were a handful of lanterns that moved over the rim like spotlights, and Ororo had to burrow further into the grass lest her white hair give her position away.

"Even the mere promise of breadcrumbs was worth our time."

Ororo's heart thudded so hard in her chest she swore they must have heard it. Vargas stepped from the shadows to stand near Magneto, so much taller in person than she had envisioned from Remy's description. The shame rolled over her again. Remy had come to her for help in dealing with this ambitious creature, and she had turned her friend away.

Magneto landed softly and knelt before Vargas. "Yes, master, of course."

Merciful Goddess, Ororo thought, if she had not seen it with her own eyes…Long ago, another life it seemed, she and the other X-Men, still so young and inexperienced save Logan, had been taken unaware by Mesmero and his hypnotic power, and had spent weeks under his influence performing as a travelling circus. They had been nothing to him, playthings, and she shuddered, knowing full well the sway those powers held.

The black band circling her wrist flashed a pattern of red lights that stood out like a beacon in the darkness. Ororo wrapped her cape hastily around her arm, cursing herself for not doing so before. The band was protection against mental attacks, the red lights indicative of a probe of some kind, but they were so bright! Of all the times to discover a design flaw!

A soft rustle of grass was the only warning Storm received. She turned to the sound too late as Psylocke rammed into her. Ororo was off balance, but managed to roll with the hit. She knew she was at an extreme disadvantage. Outnumbered, Forge still recovering nearby, outmatched by Elisabeth in hand to hand combat, but at least she was protected from the woman's telepathy. Before they stopped rolling, a sharp elbow connected with Storm's cheekbone, sending an angry strobing white through her eyeballs. She fell onto her back and Elisabeth lunged and thrust her psychic knife into Storm's forehead. The knife was a physical manifestation of Psylocke's telepathy, and though there was no incapacitating flash-fry of Ororo's nerves thanks to the dampener, the punch still hurt like the blessed mother. She caught Betsy's jaw with an up-thrust hand and shoved the woman off of her, ready to take to the skies and find Forge, but it was too late.

A burst of magnetic energy threw her hard against a tree and she flopped forward onto the ground, her back screaming in pain.

"Well, well, well." Heavy footsteps stopped near her trembling hands. "Breadcrumbs indeed." Her body was jerked to its knees by force, and Storm felt her own control of her emotions slipping. Thunderheads were gathering in the sky overhead. Lightning was useless against Magneto, but perhaps against the others…

There was the silent whisper of wings above, and a body dropped hard to the ground next to Ororo and rolled into the fetal position.

"Ahhhh, hell," Forge groaned, and Archangel landed mutely next to his master. Ororo could not move, held in place by magnetism, but could see Forge from the corner of her eye. His face was bloodied. He had put up a fight, but his costume was shredded, as if it had been cut apart with scissors. The lantern lights showed the dark glimmer of blood on Warren's eerie wings and Ororo's anger intensified. They did not wish to hurt their teammates, but it seemed that under Vargas's influence, their friends had no such compunctions.

Vargas grabbed her chin and directed her face towards his. "How perfect. I have been in need of a fourth." The grip of his gloved hand threatened to crush her jaw, but still she did not look into his eyes. She knew the power dampeners worked, but she did not want to risk ceding control to the monster, nor draw attention to her protection. His face moved close enough that she felt his hot breath against her skin, and she shivered in revulsion. "Always so strong willed," he smiled wickedly. "Will your friend prove the same?"

The creature nodded to Archangel, who lifted Forge up by his armpits, but Vargas's face fell when his power proved just as worthless on the Cheyenne inventor. "What is the meaning of this?!" Vargas spun his attention back to Ororo and lifted her by her throat, choking her with the weight of her own body. She clawed at his thick fingers, and her cape fell away, revealing the glowing red of the power dampener she wore. Those wide yellow eyes found the matching one around Forge's bionic wrist. He concentrated, and Storm felt the push of icy fingers at the base of her skull, but they went no further thanks to the dampener keeping her mind just out of reach.

"Remove them!" Vargas spat. Magneto raised a hand and she felt the static tingle of his power.

"Nice try, pal," Forge coughed and spat blood onto the ground. "Non-ferrous, just for your little minion there. Ain't nothin' breaking that band."

The gleaming cat's eyes flicked to Archangel again, and Ororo barely had time for a strangled scream before a techno-organic wing slashed Forge's hand from his body in a shower of sparks. Forge bellowed and dropped back to the ground on his remaining limbs. She knew he was not in pain in the traditional sense, his real hand had been lost long ago, but his nerves had been intimately connected to the bionic hand in order to maneuver such a delicate piece of machinery.

Vargas kept one hand at her throat, and with the other, he stretched out her arm and its radiant jewelry. Archangel raised his wing high overhead.

"NO!" Forge shouted, but Ororo was not beaten yet. From the skies, she called down a bolt of lightning that found its target in the tree behind them. A shower of flames sent them scattering like leaves on the wind.

Coughing, she rolled for Forge, but thick fingers yanked hard at her hair, and she felt a crushing weight smothering her body as the villain clamped something around her wrist.

"One way or another," Vargas hissed, his tongue tracing the shell of her ear, "you are mine!"

In the blink of an eye, they were gone.

* * *

"We'll contact you as soon as we land, and give you an update as soon as Miss Grey takes a look at them."

Rogue glanced up at Steve from the laptop. "I appreciate that. We'll touch base if and when we find anything."

"We'll send you Dr. Brashear's findings as well. From what Clint said, those mist clouds have started acting a little twitchy." Twitchy was an understatement. In the months since they were unleashed on an unsuspecting mutant population, the Terrigen Mist clouds had lazily roamed the world, wreaking havoc and ruining lives wherever they drifted. In the last few hours, they had changed course. Buffeted by a slight shift in the Earth's magnetic patterns, the dispersed clouds were coalescing to form one giant cloud in the middle of the Atlantic.

Steve patter her shoulder. "I'm sorry, Anna. I wish there were more hands on deck for this one, or that we could offer more help to bring this maniac down."

She smiled up at him softly. "I know, Steve, but we can't wait. We have to find him, _I_ have to find him, before he can hurt anyone else." Her fingers closed around his on her shoulder. "Take care of Jeannie for us?"

"We will." He sighed. "I better get going. I still have to tell Pietro he's on guard duty."

"Babysitting? Good luck with that."

Rogue and the former Captain America had spent the last couple hours dividing limited resources and scouring the personnel files of any and all reserve Avengers that could be of use. They had joked that Steve had drawn the short straw when he claimed Pietro for his team's mission to California and Avengers' Island, but they both knew that Pietro, bitching the whole way, would defend Jean Grey and their injured teammates with his life if necessary. Hearing him whine was a better position to put Quicksilver in than a confrontation with Erik, the man he had grudgingly considered his father for the better part of his life.

Steve saluted on his way out the doors. "Good luck, young lady."

Rogue waved back. "You, too, sugar."

The doors closed, leaving her alone in the conference room. "We're gonna need it," she muttered to the empty space. Her eyes trailed to the laptop's screen. There was no one, no one left alive and accounted for anyway, who could be any use to them against Magneto and Vargas. Most of the Avengers' on-call staff were a collection of street level heroes with peak human strength and abilities, nothing that would do them any good against the Master of Magnetism, let alone a superpowered hypnotist with untold powers at his disposal. The Avengers' big guns, Carol, Wanda, Vision, even Sam Guthrie, were all otherwise engaged saving the world or another part of the galaxy.

Lorna Dane would have been about the only one who could have made a difference, but her rocky relationship with her father made her just as worthless in a fight against Magneto as Pietro, especially combined with the lingering effects Vargas could have on her. She would have been nothing but a liability, and as sore as Rogue still was at her, she was glad Lorna and Shiro were safe. If only more of the X-Men could have been found, they at least had experience against Magneto as a villain, some of them against Vargas, too, but the mists had sent so many of their mutant comrades running for the hills.

Rogue kicked herself for not grabbing Lorna's powers before they left Limbo. Thanks to Simon's ions, she may have been able to hold onto…

Blinking rapidly, her train of thought screeched to a halt and jumped onto another track. _Simon._

In the Avengers' mainframe, she typed Williams, S, and her eyes skimmed through his file. From the way that scientist that captured her and the Avengers on Break World had talked, there was a lot Rogue didn't fully understand about Simon's abilities, and Vargas had said pretty much the same thing. She knew she hadn't been willing to push her limits, too afraid of damaging herself or others if the power got out of her control. Simon had been able to fly and had been superstrong, just like her, but he had also shot lasers from his eyes and blasts from his hands. Scrolling down, her eyes tore through mission log after mission log. To save himself and his teammates, Simon had learned over the years to become a being of pure ionic energy, the power he unleashed so strong hardly anything could stand against it. If she pushed hard enough with all the energy that was churning inside her, would it be enough to stop a wannabe god?

"Chere, you ready to go?"

Remy's voice echoed down the hall, and she quickly minimized Wonderman's file. Simon may have been able to wield the insane energy that coursed through his body, but he had also lost control of it too often, his body breaking down to the point that only the Scarlet Witch, Wanda Maximoff, had been able to pull him back together. Pushing her ionic abilities was a gamble, but it might be the only card she had left to play.


	19. Chapter 19

All characters owned by Marvel Comics

Author's notes: This chapter, Ororo gets a bit of a break, Vargas gets a reality check, our team gets ready to rumble, and Rogue and Remy steal a few moments alone (their time together earns this chapter a mature rating, so keep that in mind). Thanks everybody for reading!

* * *

 **Chapter Nineteen**

They reappeared a heartbeat later, and Ororo felt the scrape of rock and metal against her stomach before the weight pressing her to the ground lifted. She was yanked by her hair to her knees, and the furious and deformed face of Vargas loomed over hers.

Another bolt of lightning would surely give her a chance to slip away, but when she tried her powers again, there was nothing. A slight panic rose in her throat. She could still feel the connection to Mother Earth, how was it that she could no longer manipulate the air around them? Her eyes flicking from side to side, Ororo took in the dimly lit wasteland surrounding them. Bright lady, where were they? The landscape had been demolished, entire city blocks reduced to rubble. It looked like a warzone.

Whatever Vargas had clamped around her wrist grew warmer the longer she tried to use her powers, and when she bared her teeth at the monster and concentrated, it burned the skin beneath it.

Vargas's laugh was shrill and high, and he snatched the wrist that bore Forge's psychic dampener. "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery," he sneered, "though it seems your friend improved on my little device." He twisted her wrist, the pain shooting up the length of her arm, and her hypnotized teammates merely watched as the monster cracked the bones with his gloved hands. Ororo screamed, but Vargas kept twisting, the smile on his face gleeful. Was it his intention to wrench her arm from her body? In a blind fury, she kicked at his knee with a move Wolverine had taught her, designed to hurt even the superpowered. Vargas roared in response, and, picking her up by her crushed limb, threw her through the air. She landed with a scream and a thud, the creature over her before she could recover. Throwing up her other arm to shield her face, she prepared for the worst, but instead heard a familiar voice.

"Storm? Is that you?"

Lowering her shield, Ororo peered at the monster that stood over her. From those horrific lips had come the very feminine voice of Monet St. Croix.

Storm's bright blue eyes stared at Vargas, unwilling to believe what she was hearing. Merciful goddess, she thought, the child's blood was on her hands. How many mutants had Vargas destroyed? When she opened her lips, she chose her words carefully. "Monet, are you able to release his hold on the other X-Men?"

The creature frowned. "I…I don't know. We're fighting…but it's so hard to…" Vargas doubled over and screamed again, the enslaved Psylocke jumping to his side.

Clutching his forehead, Vargas allowed Psylocke to help him to his feet, and Magneto roughly yanked Ororo to hers. "Get her out of my sight!" The hateful voice was his own again, and Storm's heart sank.

* * *

"Time to go, chere."

Rogue nodded, but didn't look up from the laptop still balanced on the conference table's top. "In a minute, Remy."

He stepped behind her, brushed her ponytail away from the back of her neck, and bent over to rest his chin on her shoulder. "That's what you said ten minutes ago. We need to head back to Fence's, everybody else has."

She was still pouring over a very slim list of available Avengers' personnel. She and Steve had strategized for hours while the rest of them had gathered supplies and tested their new equipment from Forge. The dampeners worked better than expected, Jean couldn't get a read on a single one of them even when they stood nose to nose with her and projected things on purpose. They had decided that Jean, one of the few telepaths left on Earth, would accompany Steve and Pietro to California and Avengers' Island, where she would do her best to help the wounded New Mutants. Remy wished he or one of the other X-Men could go with the girl, but they couldn't spare the bodies right now. He knew the Avengers would protect her, and it wasn't like she was any safer with the X-Men at the moment, but he felt guilty again for not making her stay in the relative safety of X-Haven.

He winced. That was the same argument Rogue had used to justify leaving him behind and running off with Logan. He had no right to keep Jean on the sidelines. Her life, her choice.

He and Logan had yet to come to any sort of truce, but they hadn't tried to kill each other again, at least not so far. They both cared for Rogue, and for the moment that was their common ground, Vargas their common enemy, but Remy knew they'd have their come to Jesus moment as soon as the dust settled. Logan, Bobby, and Fence had returned to the bakery to finish their mission prep, but all Remy wanted right now was to take his wife to bed and wrap his arms around her, to steal a precious few moments before they went off to battle. There was one more test on Forge's retooled gizmos that he needed to perform before they headed into the unknown after Vargas, hoping Rogue's powers were similarly hindered by the dampeners.

Kissing the soft skin just below her ear, he felt the shiver that ran through her body at his touch and she leaned her head against his.

"I know, sugar. There's just so much to go over. Once things are wrapped up in California, Steve'll let us know when his squad heads out. He's got what's left of the Avengers chasing some leads Stark got from Apocalypse's computers, and I just want us to be ready whenever Fence gets us something we can use from Cerebro."

The Avengers, at least as many as Captain America could scramble together, were searching other Apocalyptic locations pulled from the database of the celestial computer that had been studied by Tony Stark for the last few months. It was as good a place to start as any, Vargas had to be lying low somewhere, and they knew from their last encounters with Archangel and Magneto that they were at least visiting those other archaeological sites, but it just didn't feel right to Remy. When Vargas had been mucking with Apocalypse's former base, he had felt it in his bones.

Their team was hitting another track, looking for Vargas in much the same way Remy, Raven, and John had tracked down Rogue when she was missing, using Cerebro to look for the hypnotized X-Men. Fence, Bobby, and Logan had gone back to the bakery and were already hard at work, probably eating cupcakes while they started a search. It made Remy nervous to split up, Vargas could be anywhere in the blink of an eye, but if A.I.M. was any indication, nowhere was safe. The sooner they found Vargas, the better, but Remy was selfish. He wanted a few minutes alone with Anna. He needed to tell her what had been happening, that Death had reared his ugly white head again, but he kept chickening out. He had to tell her. _Now_.

He swallowed instead, and frowned at the screen. "You sure you don't want Pietro, chere?" They had sent Quicksilver with the Avengers, but Remy and Pietro had been teammates a few short months ago. The two got on each other's' nerves terribly, but Remy knew Pietro would always have their backs.

"I'm sure. He's still all wound up about Erik. Last thing we need is him having a meltdown in the middle of a fight. Steve's took him to California with Jean."

Remy whistled. "Mon dieu, I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation."

Rogue laughed, but he knew it was just for show, it didn't reach all the way down to her belly like when she really got going. She was still taking all of this on herself. His eyes drifted to the computer screen. Minimized on the tool bar was a file labeled 'Williams, S.' Why was Anna looking at Wonderman's file? One more thing she felt guilty about, or was there something else?

"How did your tests go?" she asked, and the thought he had been meaning to voice disappeared.

"Better than we could have hoped," he replied, and she breathed out a sigh of relief. "Just one more power to test, mon amour, then we should probably be on our way."

She nodded and they both stood facing each other in the silent and dimly lit conference room. Remy brushed his bare fingers along her cheekbone, and the red lights danced around the band on his wrist, but he felt no drain on his powers.

Rogue bit her lip and pulled back. "That thing sure would have come in handy back in the day," she said bitterly. It was on the tip of Remy's tongue to argue that if she would have let him show her, they would have never needed a power dampener, even when her powers had been completely out of control, but he let it go. No need to rehash old hurts, especially not now.

"Oui. Too bad Forge couldn't crank out a few more of these for the Avengers." They only had the original half dozen repurposed dampeners that Anna had come home with. Before they left X-Haven Forge hadn't enough time to make any new from scratch. Jean had one, and all of them but Fence wore the remainders. Remy was worried about his friend, but John didn't have any powers that Vargas would have been hoping to control and subvert, after all, Fence was only human.

"Then it definitely needs to be me that finds that bastard. Steve's team won't be able to handle him, they'll be defenseless."

Remy grasped her chin and turned it towards him. " _Us_ , Anna. It needs to be _us_ that finds him." Even after the stunt she and her hairy friend had pulled, nearly getting themselves killed, she couldn't seriously be thinking of bailing again, could she? She wouldn't meet his eyes, never a good sign, so he changed tactics. "Anna, why are you looking at Simon's file? What are you hoping to…"

She grabbed the lapels of his trenchcoat and silenced his question with a scorching kiss. When she pulled back, she laid one hand over his thudding heart and with the other, threaded her fingers through his hair. "I was _hoping_ to keep you all from getting hurt. I wish you would have stayed with Lorna and Shiro and the others in X-Haven. I wish you were safe." A tear slid down her cheek. He leaned in to brush it away and his lips found hers again. At his caress, she drew him against her body with an eagerness that surprised him.

"Chere?" he murmured when they came up for air, but she smiled up at him from under long lashes.

"Steve, Pietro, and Jean already left for California, Fence took the boys back to his place…"

Remy chuckled warmly. The rest of the Unity Squad wouldn't be back tonight, and neither would their friends. They had the place to themselves, just the two of them. It was a little dangerous, all alone and vulnerable, and they needed to talk, but…it could wait until morning.

"You are a naughty, naughty girl," he whispered fiercely and tugged at the front zipper of her costume. She was changing the subject, distracting him, but his better judgement was eroding too fast to call her out on it.

"I learned from the best." She kissed him again and her hands rambled down the hardened ridges of his abdomen to his waistband, freeing his throbbing distraction. His long fingers followed the open zipper down her bare skin until he found her wet and waiting, and he groaned against her mouth, tracing her slippery folds while she stroked him. He watched her face as she danced against his touch. They freed each other from their clothes and Remy laid her back on the table. She wrapped her legs around his trim waist and he entered her slowly, meaning to take his time, but she urged him harder, faster, desperate, their bodies crashing together enthusiastically. He lifted her hips to push deeper inside her, and she cried out, rocking against him, wanting more, everything he had, like it was their last time…the thought flashed across his mind, but it was gone, lost in the slick sweat and heat of their bodies twined together. Her fingers dug into his backside and he felt the deliciously familiar flutters that heralded her climax, but he held her at the peak and slowed his strokes, drawing out her release until she begged him for completion. He couldn't hold back any longer and gave in to the heat between them, thrusting against her in a blind frenzy. Her eyes rolled back in her head, her beautiful lips falling open in absolute ecstasy as she shuddered around him, and like always, she took him with her over that exquisite edge.

* * *

He fought sleep for as long as he could, but despite the strength of his newfound form, he could not fight it forever.

Planting a hypnotic suggestion into the minds of his captives, something Mesmero hadn't the wherewithal to manage with his MGH inflated powers, Vargas dared to lie down and close his eyes, to his immediate regret. In the darkened chill of a nightmare, voices hissed and spat his name, hands clawing at his bare skin, their touch sending shivers of revulsion across his flesh, a fear of the contact gripping his chest in iron bands.

 _"What's the matter, boss?"_ Vanisher's ghoulish face stepped into the light.

 _"Shy, are we?"_ Mesmero was behind him, and Vargas whipped his head between the two visions, barely flickers in the shadows, and stumbled back from them. A small, cold hand ran up his spine and he yelped and leapt forward.

 _"Shy? Handsome fella like you?"_ The woman from California, Tabitha. He knew her name as surely as he now knew her favorite song.

He pitched forward and smashed headlong into Proudstar, as see-through as the others but solid to the touch.

 _"Where do you think you're going?"_ Monet St. Croix asked from the shadows.

 _"He thinks he can run away."_ DaCosta. The phantoms circled, and behind them were more faces, the mutants from the cryogenics' lab. _"He thinks he can escape."_

Struggling, Vargas threw off Proudstar's powerful grip, but the ghosts descended on him. Overhead, a giant face took shape and Vargas screamed. Apocalypse smiled.

 _"Soon you will know,"_ the ancient voice boomed. _"there is no escape."_

Vargas shrieked himself awake until his throat was raw. The silent sentry Archangel blinked predatory eyes in the dark.

"No more," Vargas muttered to himself and scrubbed sweaty hair from his face. _"No more."_

Taking the mind of anyone else would only bring him more trouble, at least until he had a better handle on Rogue's absorption abilities. He could not allow the mutants to take control of his body again. It had been humiliating, watching but unable to move his own body…he was not a man used to feeling helpless.

If only there were a way to learn more of Rogue's powers without confronting her directly. He would confront her, in time, of that he was sure. Their final dance was looming, but not until he was ready. He had hoped to have an entire army's worth of mutant powers at his disposal when he faced her, but after today, after that St. Croix woman had...had…

He pushed the thought from his mind. He would need to be ready, Rogue would surely be well protected by Gambit and that rabble the Avengers. Until he could learn more, learn to control the power, there would be no more absorptions. Though the thought of taking Storm's powers as his own was more than tempting, he could not risk it. He would have to break her, force her to do his bidding like he had Magneto. The mutants, Xavier's students especially, were too well trained, too strong.

 _"It is not that they are strong,"_ Apocalypse's voice echoed in his mind, halting his breath. _"It is you that are weak."_

* * *

"Remy…?"

Rogue rolled over to find the spot next to her in bed had grown cold. It was dark, and it took her a second to remember where she was, tangled up in blankets in some corner of Fence's warehouse, and another second to realize there was somebody sitting on the end of her bed, and that somebody wasn't her husband. She jumped and pulled the blankets up to her chin.

"Take it easy, darlin'. I just want to talk."

 _Logan._ She opened her mouth to ask what he had done with Remy, but the delicious smell of freshly brewed coffee wafted under her nose, accompanied by the faint clatter of pans coming from the kitchen. Her husband, one of those annoying morning people, had gotten up to cook breakfast. Rogue scowled and wrapped the blankets around her tighter.

"So," she scowled through the dark. "Talk."

He sighed, and she could make out enough of his figure to see that he had slouched forward, leaning his elbows on his knees. "You ain't gonna make this easy on me, are ya?"

"Should I? Ya sure didn't make it easy on me." The memories she had taken from him had faded, leaving only the vague impressions behind, but they were tangled with her own feelings for the Logan of her reality, and right now, she hated him for that. Logan had been her friend, like an older brother, and this man had tainted and twisted all of that inside her until she wasn't sure what had been real and what she had imagined. Not that long ago, she had let memories of a world that had never existed come between her and Remy, and she'd be damned if she fell into that trap again.

He sighed again, louder this time. "I wanted to say that…I'm sorry." It sounded like he choked on the last word, and Rogue sat up a little straighter.

"Mercy. You're really not my Logan, are you?" Her tone was teasing to cut the thick tension, and she could hear a smile in his voice when he spoke again.

"And maybe it's a good thing you ain't my Rogue." He turned his face towards hers, and now that her eyes had adjusted, she could see the faint shine of tears on his cheeks. "Guess that's what I wanted to talk to you about. I…I know you're not mine, darlin'. You're not mine, and I'm not yours…but I want to help you finish this. I just wanted to say I'm with ya...til the end...I..."

"Oh, Logan," she fought back the tears that wanted to answer his, and launched herself to the end of the bed, where she wrapped him in a bear hug.

He exhaled into her hair and squeezed her back. "All right, all right. Cool it." She let go of him and leaned back on her haunches, and he wiped a tear from her cheek. "Whatever changed 'tween our two worlds, darlin', maybe it was for the best. You're alive, and that's all that matters to me right now. Gumbo did better by you than I ever could, and… I'm…happy for ya', darlin'. I really am."

Swallowing the lump in her throat was proving harder than she could manage. "Logan, I…"

A series of frantic knocks echoed through the warehouse, the loud bangs coming from the front door of the shop. Rogue froze. Remy was in the kitchen, she thought, was he…? There was another set of knocks, louder this time, and she jumped to her feet and followed the sound, everything she meant to say to Logan dying on her lips.

* * *

It was early, or late for those of them that had gotten next to nothing for sleep, but then he never needed much anyway. Remy yawned and stretched, scratching his stomach lazily and firing up the work of art that was Fence's stove. In the real walk-in cooler he had found plenty of fixings for his version of a grand slam breakfast. He was starving, a good naked romp always worked up an appetite, but he knew everyone else would be hungry, too. He and Rogue had made it back to Fence's well after midnight, and they and the boys had went around in strategic circles for hours before everybody had collapsed for cat naps on whatever flat surface they could find, John letting the married couple sleep on the bed he kept tucked in a private corner of the warehouse. He still hadn't been able to tell her, and anxiety wound him in knots. What would she say? Would she be angry? Disappointed? Would Logan be there to pick up the pieces?

Though he wondered what she had seen in Logan's mind, Remy hadn't pushed Rogue on the details. She was his wife, but it wasn't really his business. But then, it wasn't really Anna's business either, none of what she had taken had happened to her. The tension between Rogue and Logan was raw and angry, stretched tight like a rubber band about to snap, and Remy didn't like it. If that hairy son of a bitch jeopardized the mission or hurt his wife again, they would pick right up where they left off in that theatre, truce or no.

A rattling knock resonated from the bakery's storefront and Remy rolled his eyes. It wasn't even five a.m. on a Sunday. The pounding resumed, more frantic this time. He knew Fence's pastries were to die for, but this was ridiculous!

His hands covered in biscuit dough, Remy scooted as close to the entrance as he could and called out. "Read the sign! We closed!"

Whoever was looking for their breakfast only beat the glass harder and rattled the handle. Remy swore under his breath and started washing his hands so he could got tell the hungry hipster to piss off, when an irate Rogue stumbled into the kitchen, her curly hair a slept-in rat's nest.

"You okay?" she frowned at him curiously, and wrapped one of his flannel shirts tighter around her small frame. "What the hell are you hollerin' about in here, sugar?"

"Somebody at the door," Remy glanced over his shoulder at his wife. Anna was about as far from a morning person as you could get. Speaking to her before coffee was a dangerous proposition, especially going on as little sleep as she had.

"Can't they read?" she huffed, her pretty face scrunched, and Remy couldn't help but laugh.

"That's what I said!" he had to jump to the side to dodge the hand towel she threw at him as she walked out into the shop.

"You cook. I'll take care of it."

He dried his hands, chuckling to himself, and bent into the fridge to retrieve more eggs when he heard her scream.

 _"Remy!"_

Smacking his head on a refrigerator shelf, he sprinted towards Anna's voice, his heart in his throat, a charged whisk in his hand.

"Take it easy, pal."

Remy almost didn't recognize the beaten and filthy man leaning heavily on Rogue's shoulder, but Forge's moustache cut a swath through the dirt and blood caking his face. "What's a man gotta do to get a bear claw around here?" the inventor joked, but limped when Rogue helped him forward, and cradled what was left of his arm against his chest.

Trying not to stare at Forge's wrist and the torn and shredded electrical remnants of his bionic hand, Remy caught Anna's now wide awake stare. "I'll round up a first aid kit, chere."

Fence was wide awake in his office chair, and Logan was over his shoulder, but Bobby was still snoring, sprawled on a nearby cot. Remy hated to wake him, but to steal a line from the Captain, they had a situation. He shook Drake's bare foot from where it hung over the edge of the too short cot.

"Up and attem, mon ami."

Bobby twitched and snorted. "Huh? _Brefast_?" he blinked, and Remy shook his head.

"Non. Just trouble."


	20. Chapter 20

All characters owned by Marvel Comics

Author's notes: Ugh, sorry everybody for the late post this week! The real world has been intruding. After a whole year on the market, we _finally_ sold our house and are trying to make a cross country move happen, which is crazy and scary and also majorly time consuming! I'll definitely get this story closed out, (we're nearing the end, two chapters and an epilogue left) but I may be taking a break for a little while on anything new. I do have a couple of things in early stages, so hopefully not too much of a break.

Anyway, everybody's gearing up for a big smackdown this chapter. Enjoy!

* * *

 **Chapter Twenty**

She concentrated on her breathing, on the rise and fall of her chest, the faint whistle and the stirring of her hair, and how it coincided with the beating of her heart. _In, two, three, four, out, two, three, four._

She would not think about the darkness, the inky black that pressed so close around her that it felt like she could stretch her arms and touch each side of her cell from where she sat on the barren floor with her knees drawn into her chest. _In, two, three, four._

She would not think of the airplanes or their bombs or her mother's last breath or the walls moving ever closer, swallowing her, of the days spent in the darkness, alone, all those years ago, save for the corpse of the woman who had brought her into this world. _Out, two, three, four._

It had been a very long time since her claustrophobia had reared its head so jarringly, but then it had been a very long time since Storm had been locked inside a real cage. Unable to remove Forge's refurbished and reinforced psychic dampener, and as yet unwilling to carry out a variety of threats on her person, her captors had thrown her into a mutate prison cell in what was left of Genosha's capital city. The island had always been a nightmare, even before sentinels had razed it to kindling, but Vargas and his newly christened Horsemen had been busy in between assaulting the remnants of mutant kind. Part of the former palace was now standing, possibly livable, and they had cleared out the Citadel's prison, just for her it seemed, though Ororo assumed she could eventually have company.

Why was the creature toying with her? Was he trying to break her? To torture her? Did he wish to hear her beg for mercy, or did he truly not know what he wanted to do with her? Vargas, according to Remy, had a version of Rogue's power for his own, and if not for Forge's jewelry, would have claimed Ororo's just as easily.

Being unable to access her mutant abilities hardly left Storm helpless, she had learned long ago not to rely solely on those powers, but she knew she was physically outmatched. If Vargas wanted her as a mindless slave, he could have removed the dampener blocking his hypnotic attack as easily as they had removed Forge's, and he had certainly tried. Perhaps, if his fantasy was that she was to be _his_ , as seemed to be the fantasy of so many villains over the years, he did not want her permanently damaged? She cradled her broken arm gingerly to her chest. If her injury was not looked at soon, it could become infected, but that seemed to be the least of her problems at the moment. Vargas had been stopped, his mad attack halted, when the soul he had stolen from Monet St. Croix wrested control of his body. Could the girl manage it again?

She shuddered despite the oppressive heat. She would sooner perish than allow that monster to control _her._ Unable to stop herself, Ororo's blue eyes followed the darkness, imagining that the walls of the cell were shrinking. Logan and Rogue had once been held prisoner here, and later the rest of the X-Men before they had brought the society to its knees.

How long would they keep her here? Why had they not come for her again? She balled her good hand into a fist and squeezed her eyes shut. Was Forge all right? Had he survived, or had they executed him? Her captors had been less than forthcoming. Ororo had to stop the tears that threatened to slide down her cheeks.

There was the angry growl of thunder high above the prison. The weather around Ororo tended to echo her emotions, the connection to mother Earth broadcasting her every foul mood, but Vargas's dampener should have blocked that connection. But, could it really block it entirely? Years ago, Storm had lost her powers thanks to another of Forge's inventions. During that time, she had found a strength inside herself that she never knew existed, but occasionally, the weather had reacted to her most intense emotions. What if…?

Ororo concentrated, and the lightning strobed through her closed eyelids, followed by the crash of thunder. She smiled. Vargas would find she was far from helpless…

* * *

"Ow."

"Sorry, sugar, I said it'd sting." Rogue swabbed Forge's collection of wounds as gingerly as she could while Fence did his best to give the man a workable hand. She could see the nervous sheen of sweat on the bigger man's brow as he quickly cobbled together a bionic hand for his scientific idol. Rogue wanted to give Fence a big hug and tell him to relax, that in an emergency Forge would be impressed by anything they could MacGyver together for him, but she kept at her task instead.

The frosty ripple of Bobby's power sent goosebumps up her arm and her friend laid an ice pack on Forge's shoulder.

"Walk us through it again, Forge." Bobby's voice was surprisingly stern, there was no trace of the screwball jokester Rogue loved like a brother.

She turned her head to raise an eyebrow at him over her shoulder. Forge had been through it already, five times at least, enough times that a troubled Remy had gone back to cooking breakfast. They all needed to eat, but Rogue knew better. Her husband was blaming himself for what had happened to Ororo. He needed a minute to himself, but Remy wouldn't even get that. Logan had followed Remy before Rogue could stop him, and she was keeping one ear aimed towards the kitchen.

Opening her mouth to tell Bobby to back off, Forge beat her to the punch.

"You know everything I do. We came to help, and we got ambushed." With his remaining hand, he rubbed his weary eyes.

"I guess I'm just trying to wrap my head around it." Rogue saw a twitch of angry confusion flash across Bobby's face. "Illyana sealed Limbo, and Ororo told us all to go to hell, or get out of hell, I guess. Why would she suddenly…?"

Forge whirled on him, pulling the skeleton framework of his new hand out of Fence's grasp. "Fuck off, pal! You think she didn't want to help? You got no fucking idea the pressure she's under!"

"Fuck off?" Bobby roared. "You fuck off! Don't try and tell me about pressure! I've been right there, _pal_ , from the beginning, out in the world, working my ass off trying to rescue all the strays out there, and how does she thank me? By locking me up in Dante's fucking Inferno while I argued every goddamned day with her! One of my best friends is in danger, but what finally changes her mind? Not me or my feelings or Rogue's safety, but Gambit's fucking puppy dog eyes!?"

"Calm down, Bobby." Rogue stood and put her hand on Bobby's heaving chest. She rarely saw him so passionate, though rumor had it he had once told Scott off on her behalf. It was impressive to see Bobby in action, but right now it wasn't doing them a lick of good. "Storm changed her mind, and we all love her for it. The important thing now is finding her."

Bobby, still seeing red, squared his jaw and stalked back to Fence's main computer and Cerebro, leaning over his outstretched arms on the desk. She let him go without another word, figuring the Iceman needed a second to cool off.

"Forge, do you think her psychic dampener will hold long enough to shield her from Vargas?"

Sighing, Forge laid his forearm back on the table for Fence. "I honestly don't know. Yesterday I would have said, yeah, no problem. The ones I made were non-ferrous, practically indestructible, that baby's not coming off until she takes it off, but that was before this." He gestured to his hand. Rogue shivered even with Bobby across the room. Vargas had maimed Forge. What was he doing to Storm?

"We'll find her. We have to."

Forge laughed bitterly. "How? The computers haven't found squat, and you yahoos sent away our only telepath! And you know your real fucking problem? The second you find this jerkoff, he's gonna teleport away! I mean, why the hell wouldn't he?"

"He won't," Rogue said bluntly, "because he thinks he can beat us. You're right though, as soon as the tide turns he'll bail. He's arrogant, but he ain't stupid."

"No, but you are if you're just gonna go 'round in circles chasing him."

Hackles raised, Rogue was ready to continue Bobby's tongue lashing when Iceman called out to her.

"Hey, Anna?" His voice, anxious and confused, halted her tirade. "Can you come look at this?"

She glared at Forge and shoved gauze into his good hand on the way by. "What is it, sugar?" she asked, but Bobby smiled lopsidedly at her.

"You tell me."

He pointed to the largest monitor, where a world weather map was displayed. Off the coast of Africa, a monster storm was brewing, an angry swirl of thick white clouds that seemed to be gaining intensity right before their eyes. "That wasn't there when I walked over here." He raised an eyebrow. "Any guesses at what particular landmass that's plowing over?"

She leaned closer and frowned. Jesus H. Christ, she thought. _Genosha!_

Whipping her head around, she and Bobby yelped at the same time.

"Storm!"

* * *

The pain was so cold it burned Remy from the inside out, and his last steps were zombie lurches before he slammed into the stainless steel counter in Fence's kitchen. Arms spread wide, he gripped the metal and only just stopped himself from banging his head against the flat surface.

"Arretez…arretez…arretez…" he hissed through clenched teeth, but the monster inside laughed merrily and inched that much closer to the surface. Remy couldn't lose control, not like this, not with all of them so close. He couldn't let Anna see him like this, not again, not before he got a chance to tell her…

Merde, he thought through the angry haze, _Ororo_! That son of a bitch had her, she had been coming to help! This was his fault!

Behind him, the fall of heavy footsteps, and Remy didn't need to turn around to know who had followed him. Right now, Logan was the last person on the planet he wanted to be near, and his hands shook with barely controlled rage.

"Somebody said you were fryin' bacon." Logan sat on a stool at the island and took an exaggerated sniff. "Sure don't smell like it. Matter of fact, smells like somethin' _died_."

Remy released his grip on the counter and slowly pulled a frying pan from the overhead rack, praying silently that the familiar ritual of cooking would give him a focus. "I'm on it," Remy called over his shoulder, his voice quaking.

Logan was listening to something else, and grunted. "Can hear' em in there. They think they found Ororo."

The frying pan clattered into the sink and Remy's heart lurched into his throat, the panic swallowing his alter ego for the moment. _"What?"_ He didn't trust himself to face Logan just yet, so busied himself with cleaning up the mess he had made.

"Sounds like there's some monster storm brewing over Genosha. Seems as good a place to start as any." Logan had lit a cigar and took a long drag before he spoke again. "Rescue mission's already in the works, which brings us back to our little problem."

Remy's fingers closed around the handle of the skillet. If Logan was looking to finish their brawl from earlier, Remy didn't know if he could stop himself from changing, especially with Death already so close to the surface, but instead of attacking, Logan kept talking.

"I ain't…apologizing…for what happened, but you may have had a point, 'bout her not being…my Rogue."

Remy nearly dropped the frying pan again and finally spun to face Logan. He opened his mouth to speak, but Logan held up a hand. "Shut the fuck up, all right? Just let me say what I got to say. I know you ain't the same as the X-Men I knew, I do. It's just hard sometimes…so much is the same…and it's been so damned long…" He ran a hand through his wild hair and sighed, then raised his chin to lock eyes with Remy. "We save her. No matter what. No matter the shit between us, no matter who else gets in the way, she comes out of this alive, you hear me?"

"Oh, so now you concerned wit' her safety?" Remy snapped. It hadn't even been two days since Logan and Rogue had taken off together to try and fight Vargas and his bewitched X-Men, and Logan was going to sit her and lecture him on…

Logan's eyes flashed. "You want me to say it? I was wrong."

The silence that followed Logan's statement would have given Remy a chance to rip him a new one, but he couldn't find any words and gaped at Logan like a fish out of water. When it became clear Remy was speechless, Logan spoke up again. "I nearly let it happen again, she almost…" he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, his nostrils flaring. "I don't need any new nightmares, Cajun. I know short of lockin' her up in Stark's tower that we can't keep her out of this, and believe me, I thought about it, but we keep her safe. No matter what." He held out a burly hand to shake and Remy took it. It wasn't over, but it would do for now. Remy was still angry with him, but deep down he had missed his friend.

"Eggs over easy?" Remy asked, and even managed a crooked grin. Their Logan had liked his food just shy of raw, eggs runny, steaks still practically mooing.

Logan grinned back. "Only way to eat 'em, bub."

* * *

"Figures the cockroach'd be hidin' in Genosha. Place always was a garbage dump." Logan grunted, and shook his head.

"I think we're all agreed it's our best lead."

With his chin, Remy pointed towards Fence's main monitor and the zoomed in image of the freakish storm of the century currently pummeling the African island. Meteorologists the world over were baffled by the powerful, yet seemingly stationary storm that sat in the ocean and spun circles around Genosha. As far as Remy was concerned, it could only be Stormy, and they needed to get to her as fast as they could. Unfortunately, satellite imagery of the ground level of the island had been suspiciously non-existent for months thanks to Magneto and his band of fake X-Men converting the destroyed nation into their headquarters. They would be stepping straight into a hurricane, blindfolded with their hands tied behind their backs.

They had been trying to reach the Avengers, but they couldn't wait for Rogers' team. Fence and the too injured Forge were going to journey to Avengers' Tower to deliver a handful of extra psychic dampeners and to coordinate efforts with Earth's Mightiest Heroes, but the X-Men didn't have time to wait for backup. Storm was in trouble and time was of the essence.

Remy couldn't let himself think of the possibility that the raging weather could be due to Vargas absorbing Storm or her falling under his hypnotic influence. It was a flare gun, he told himself, she was signaling for them.

The Avengers were coming as soon as they could, but the second the X-Men teleported to Genosha they wouldn't be able to communicate with the outside world thanks to the wild weather. That left Gambit, Rogue, Iceman, and Wolverine to swoop in, grab Storm, tackle three hypnotized teammates and finish off Vargas. Remy cleared his throat and nervously fiddled with one of the decks of cards in his pocket. This was gonna be a disaster, he thought, a dangerous disaster.

"Everybody clear on the plan?" Rogue asked and met each of their eyes. Remy and Logan's faces were stoic masks, but Bobby saluted.

"Clear as mud, boss. We 'port in using coordinates from Raven's ring, split up, find Storm, beat up our friends, take down Vargamort, back in time for supper."

"Vargamort?" Remy scowled.

"What?" Bobby frowned. "He'd totally be in Slytherin. You don't like it?"

"Non, I don't like it," Remy railed, "I don' like any of it! 'Specially the part 'bout us splittin' up!" He and Logan's plan, the one where they stuck to Rogue like glue, had been shot out of the water and stomped on before they even passed go.

Rogue zipped her jacket and looked away. "We've been over this, Remy. We need to cover a lot of ground quickly, and the four of us together is gonna draw too much attention. You and Logan are the best trackers and the sneakiest, you can find Storm while me and Bobby keep the rest of 'em busy. Once you find her, y'all come and find us."

"The two of you against all of them?" The thought left a bad taste in Remy's mouth, and he knew Logan agreed with him. The pair had argued with Rogue, but as much as he hated to admit it and still wished it were otherwise, her plan made the most sense with their numbers. Didn't mean he was going to stop trying to convince her otherwise.

"I absorbed all'a your powers. It's them you should worry about. We're wastin' time. Bobby and I are the heavy hitters on this one, and Logan needs to stay away from Erik until we can get one of Forge's doohickeys on his wrist."

They were all carrying more of the dampeners that would interfere with Vargas's hypnotic powers. If they could get ahold of Betsy, Erik, or Warren, the tide would turn in their favor quickly, but there was still something about the plan Remy didn't like, logical or no. Anna was keeping him and Logan away from her, and keeping Remy far away from Vargas. It made him a little angry, like she had no faith in him, but how could she? He had been lying to her, keeping the truth of Death from her. Remy knew he couldn't say for sure what being near Vargas would do to him, not until he came face to face with the demon, but at least she hadn't sent him to California to babysit or left him behind again.

"All right," Logan grunted, "We goin', or are we just gonna sit here jawin' all night?"

The boys gathered closer together, but Rogue stepped back towards Forge and Fence.

"We'll bring her back home, Forge. You have my word."

Forge raised his hand and touched the surprised Rogue's cheek. "Take a little of mine, too, kid. You never know when it might come in handy. And…take _this_." He pulled out a gun, high tech and futuristic, small enough to fit in the palm of his hand.

"Forge, I don't really think a gun will make much..."

"Give me a little credit, it's not just a gun. I was thinking about your little problem, about keeping Vargas in place, and instead of just bitching at you, I decided to do something about it. I mean, problem solving, it's what I do, right? This is based off of an old invention of mine you might be familiar with."

The guilty look in his eyes stopped her breath short. A long time ago, the U.S. government had come looking for Rogue armed with a weapon of Forge's design, a weapon that took away mutant powers. In the firefight, Ororo had been hit instead of Rogue, crippling her.

It was a technology Forge had sworn never to replicate, but his hands pressed the weapon into hers. "I don't know how this will work against someone wielding so many mutant powers, or just how many shots you'll get out of it. Make every one count."

She smiled gratefully and tucked the weapon in her jacket pocket. "Thanks, sugar. You two head to the Tower, tell 'em where we're goin' and that we couldn't wait." She stepped back and stretched out a hand. "All for one?"

Remy laid his over hers. "One for all, mon amour."

Logan and Bobby followed suit, and then they were gone.


	21. Chapter 21

All characters owned by Marvel Comics

* * *

 **Chapter Twenty-One**

The rain slapped and soaked them the second they materialized on Genoshan soil. Remy swore under his breath and wiped the sheet of water from his face. It was daytime at least, but you'd hardly know it with the sky black as pitch from Storm's little production. The nearby ruins of the capital city were invisible behind a curtain of rain, but in the distance, he could see the glitter of sunshine through a break in the clouds. The sooner they found Ororo the better. The last thing he wanted was to leave Anna and Bobby, splitting up still seemed like the worst thing they could do, but Remy knew when his wife had dug in her heels. So goddamned stubborn sometimes…It would do no good to argue anymore, not in the thick of it. Best he could do was find Ororo and get back to Rogue as fast as possible. Would Logan's enhanced senses be able to puzzle anything out through the rain? Was the hurricane circling around Stormy's location, could they find her smack in the middle of the eye? Remy grabbed Logan's shoulder, his fingers slipping on the rain slicked leather. The man shrugged off Remy's hand and gestured towards the light.

"This way!" Logan yelled over the din, and took off without him.

Before following, Remy turned back to Anna and grabbed both sides of her face, pulling her into a breathless but soggy kiss. He held his forehead against hers and whispered against her lips. "Come home to me." She nodded sharply before she drew away, and she and Drake trudged in the opposite direction.

He had to scramble to catch up with Logan, jumping the wreckage of obliterated buildings all while being hammered by the deluge. Logan hadn't gotten far ahead, Remy found him crouched against a partial brick alcove, his forearm shielding his face.

Sniffing the air furiously, he turned and shouted at Remy. "Ororo's really fuckin' us over here!"

"You be sure t'tell her that, mon ami!"

From their secluded vantage point, Remy could see their surroundings a little better. There wasn't much left thanks to the sentinels' attack years ago. The only sound structures he could see were the imperial palace and the prison. The citadel, where mutants had been imprisoned and changed during the country's checkered past, lay spotlighted by sunshine beneath the break in the clouds.

"Keep your eyes peeled, if Ororo's in there, it's hard to say which of 'ems pullin' guard duty."

That was their problem. The mission so far was operating on a lot of assumptions. They _assumed_ Vargas had only recruited three mutants as his closest henchmen. They _assumed_ Ororo was still on their side and not the fourth. It made Remy's insides clench because he knew what happened when you assumed, but they didn't have a lot of choices. Stormy needed them.

Using the rain and ruins as cover, the two slunk further towards the watery veil surrounding the citadel. It wasn't like Remy remembered it, a little more war zone than green and pleasant nation, but sections of the magistrate's prison still looked sound, even after the rest of the country and its millions of inhabitants had been burned to the ground by the sentinels. They were out of cover, there were no more fallen building that butted up to the citadel, and they stepped through the curtain of rain into the thick, eerie stillness beyond.

"Damn," Remy muttered and shook the water from his leather trenchcoat, slicking his drenched hair back from his face. The storm raged just a hand's breadth away, soaking the ground and drowning out any other noises, but over the prison existed an oppressive, humid calm that made him light headed and nauseated. At least, he hoped it was the humidity turning his stomach.

Logan sniffed and his eyes darted from side to side. "Got her," he snarled and stalked forward, Remy cursing the man's surprising lack of stealth under his breath. Age certainly hadn't granted Logan subtlety. With his back against the outside wall to catch his breath, Remy followed his hairy partner and cringed when the man popped his claws and slashed through the reinforced steel entrance. The interior corridors were darkened and hot as sin, a jungle without the ventilation system and air conditioning of years' past. The halls were littered with garbage and broken glass. His nose to the ground, Logan charged forward, a man on a mission, through three floors of dead ends and empty corridors.

"Hey," Remy finally hissed behind him. "We goin' in circles here? Thought we were on the same page here...we need to get back to Rogue! You sure you know what you doin'?"

Logan growled and spun, slamming Remy hard against a wall. "Back the fuck off!" An adamantium crowbar in the form of a burly forearm pinned Remy by his throat, and Logan's thick fingers fisted into the lapels of Remy's trenchcoat. "Whole place stinks 'o death…I can't…!"

Remy struggled to get a word and a breath and swallowed his own anger. "…Should be easy then, to…find a live one…!" Seeing stars, he held tight to the fabric of Logan's glove and lit a kinetic charge. The hell if they were going to go through this again…!

A shadow flicked towards them, and all it took was a twitch of Remy's eyebrows to signal Wolverine. In an instant, the man went from choking Remy to throwing him to the ground, bending his own body backwards to catch the business end of a katana with his extended claws. The hypnotized Elisabeth Braddock kicked at the back of Wolverine's knees, dropping him to the ground with a resounding thud. She raised her sword to strike, but Remy rolled forward and landed a kick to her midsection, her blade clattering to the floor. When she lunged back towards Remy, he blocked her sharp fist and caught her wrist, wrenching it behind her. She pitched forward, catching Remy off balance, and flipped the pair of them, Remy landing on his back. Ready to strike, her psychic knife flashed to life, but Logan barreled into her and pinned her to the ground where the two thrashed.

"Hold her steady!" Remy reached into a pocket of his trenchcoat and retrieved one of the psychic dampeners Forge had sent with them, saying a silent prayer as he slapped it onto the woman's wrist. The red lights circling the band flashed a frightening disco beat and Betsy screamed, her face and body shaking in the sudden throes of a seizure.

"Oh, fuck," Logan leaned his weight on her heavily, and wedged the collar of his leather jacket into her mouth to stop her from biting off her own tongue.

'Oh, fuck' was just about right, Remy thought grimly, panic swirling his insides. Rogue had their teleportation ring, the one she had gotten from Raven had been lost in Tibet when she and Logan had been attacked. They were screwed if Betsy needed anything besides basic first aid. The woman shuddered and gasped, her body stilling beneath Logan. Remy felt frantically for her pulse.

"She's still breathin', Cajun," Logan whispered and crouched over Betsy's body.

They had hoped freeing their comrades from Vargas's influence would give them a few extra hands against the villain, but if Elisabeth was any indication, they were going to be saddled with a few unconscious burdens before it was all over.

Logan lifted Psylocke's limp form over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes as he stood. "Let's find Ororo."

* * *

"Incoming!"

Snatching Rogue by the shoulders, Iceman shoved her into a snowbank and shot an icy projectile into the now whiteout sky. Rogue rolled, got her feet under her, and rocketed into the air after Bobby's blast. Archangel dodged the snowball, but not her fist, and Warren crashed to the ground in a heap. A frozen blanket of ice frothed over him.

"I got this!" Bobby yelled over the roaring wind. Beneath the ice, Warren twitched and struggled, but Iceman held him fast.

Rogue's plan had been to draw all the attention so the sneaky boys could do what they did best. When Remy and Logan had Ororo, they'd come join the fight and, together, they'd end all this mess, one way or another. Forge's gun still weighed heavily in her pocket. Erasing Vargas's powers was a Hail Mary at best, he wasn't exactly a mutant and the weapon's range was fairly limited, but he had to be stopped, and she would use everything they had to make sure that happened.

When Remy and Logan had disappeared into the storm, Bobby and Rogue, hers a mirror image of Iceman's powers, had tapped into the meteorological energy drowning them. Together they had dropped the temperature sixty degrees in just as many seconds. 80 to 20, and lower still they had pushed, the raging thunderstorm wildly shifting gears. Their distraction had given the African nation its first recorded snowfall in modern history. Rogue shivered, reminded of her near frozen escape attempt from Apocalypse's temple, but their little trick had been like waving a red cape in front of a bull.

She nodded to Bobby and rose higher, hoping to get a bird's eye view through the blizzard, but she hadn't gone more than a hundred vertical feet when a magnetic blast knocked her from the sky. She landed with a hard thud in a pile of snowy concrete blocks. Lucky them, they had hit the motherlode of brainwashed X-Men. She swore and wrenched herself free from the rubble in time to see Bobby taking a crack at Magneto, using his mutant powers to twist the ice and snow around Anna's former lover. Magneto broke the icy chains as soon as they formed, but Rogue felt the temperature dropping like a rock around them, her breath forming great frozen clouds over her head. Focused on Magneto, Bobby lost his grip on the cage holding Archangel, and Warren roared and spread his wings, sending frozen shards to rain on Rogue. Warren launched himself for Bobby, but Rogue gave chase, slamming into him and making him change trajectory and head higher.

She didn't want to leave Bobby. It looked like he and Erik were at a stalemate, but the sneaky Bobby was slowly lowering the temperature and she couldn't get any closer to the pair without freezing solid herself. Stretching for the upper atmosphere, she snagged Warren's ankle and swung him in circles, huddling closer to his body to steer clear of his razor sharp wings. He struggled to free himself from her grip, and the two locked themselves into a tailspin and crashed through the side of a half collapsed building.

"Warren!"

Rogue had tried to take the brunt of the impact with her invulnerable body, but Archangel lay motionless beside her. She quickly felt for a pulse and swallowed in relief at the faint, sluggish beat. Pulling free one of the psionic dampeners from her pocket, she lifted Warren's arm and snapped the bracelet into place.

"Oh, Warren…" Pushing the cowl of his costume back, she smoothed the matted blonde locks from his forehead. "Are you even in there, sugar?"

Warren had never really been her friend, truthfully she didn't think he had ever forgiven her for her childish vendetta against him and Dazzler all those crazy years ago, and Rogue was pretty sure his snooty ass just saw her as poor white trash, but they had a grudging respect for each other. She hated to see that Apocalypse's machinations still had such a hold on him. What did that mean for Remy and the others? Her husband had beaten back the monster inside of him, but so had Warren.

A shadow fell across the opening to the outside, and she turned towards the slithering voice that greeted her.

"Hello, Rogue."

The resemblance to Apocalypse was even stronger than she had remembered.

"Vargas?" As she turned, she slid a hand into her pocket to feel the cold steel of Forge's gun. "Is that what you're still callin' yourself?" Keep him, talkin', she told himself. She knew he wanted to finish this as much as she did, but she needed to keep him here. If he teleported away again, they may never find him.

He sneered and laughed softly into the skeletal building. "And why wouldn't I?"

Had she struck a nerve? "I dunno. Have ya' looked in a mirror lately?"

She pulled the weapon free and fired a clean shot into his shoulder. Vargas roared in pain and a blinding flash of light and heat flared from his body. Another shot to the opposite shoulder dropped him to his knees.

"Meddling woman!"

She advanced and fired again, but he rolled and she missed. He responded with a blast of solar energy from outstretched hands that whizzed by her head and singed her curls.

"Let this wretched place be your tomb!"

She rolled from another blast, dragging Warren with her, wedging Archangel's body under a torn piece of drywall. Using the drywall as cover she fired again, the shot wide this time.

Solar blasts. _Son of a fucking bitch…_ Forge's gun wasn't working fast enough. She was ready to rip this monster to shreds with her bare hands for all he had taken from her friends, which wasn't improving her aim. She pocketed the gun again, and with the sting of tears in her eyes, sprang from her hiding place and launched herself at Vargas. Solar blasts…Roberto DaCosta, the arrogant punk kid she had watched grow into an even more arrogant, but heroic man, those were _his_ powers.

"Stolen powers? Bite off more than you can chew, big boy?" She punched into Vargas's torso and sent him flying straight backwards from the remains of the building. "How many have you taken? Bet it's getting' a little crowded in that head of yours."

He screwed up his face, concentrating. Was he trying to teleport? Rogue kept her hands on him, but nothing happened, and Vargas blinked in surprise. He tried it again, but he remained in her grasp, and Rogue laughed in his face. "Sugar, tell me you ain't trying to break wind in front of me!"

The creature snarled and lashed out at her with another solar blast, frying the fabric covering her arm. Catching him with a right hook and knocking him against the framework of the building, she grabbed him by the front of his bodysuit and stared into those haunting yellow eyes.

"'Berto!" she pleaded, "Can ya hear me, sugar? I know you're in there. Tabby? James? Fight him!" She held Vargas with one arm against his throat while the villain clawed at her arms and face. Grabbing Forge's toy again, she pressed the weapon between them and fired, but Vargas twisted the barrel as she pulled the trigger, snapping the chamber and exploding the weapon's payload. The blast blew them apart in a flash of white light and they both screamed. Rogue doubled over in pain, blinded, but somehow able to stay aloft. She was still flying but so was Vargas. What had Forge's weapon done? Did they each have too many abilities for the weapon to wipe the slate clean?

 _"Enough!"_

Instead of attacking, Vargas grabbed her and yanked on her arms, flipping her up and over his head and back into another gaping hole in the building. Her eyes still blurry, she saw him rocket into the sky on powers not his own. Woozy, she gave chase, hoping deep inside that what she took from Simon would be enough to save them all.


	22. Chapter 22

All characters owned by Marvel Comics

Author's notes: The battle ends here, folks! After this chapter we've got nothing left but the epilogue. Thanks everybody for reading!

* * *

 **Chapter Twenty-Two**

"Hold still, darlin'."

A beaten and dirty Ororo leaned into Remy's chest, cradling a broken wrist against her own.

"These bracelets ain't as tough as Forge's," Logan grimaced, "but my aim ain't what it used t'be."

"Along wit' everythin' else, mon ami."

Jokes were helping Remy ignore the oppressive heat that was making him want to throw up on Logan's boots, and to ignore the instinct to bolt out of there and find his wife. Were his nerves getting the better of him? He'd never been this on edge for a mission, and there had been plenty over the years with stakes just as high. He pushed away the other possibility that crawled up the back of his neck. Hell, no…not here. He could not lose control. Remy knew he should have told them all what was happening, should have told Anna. What would happen when he saw Vargas? He had spent the better part of the last few days holding Death inside like the worst kind of sickness, but he didn't know if he could do it forever. _'No matter what'_ , Logan had said, Rogue's safety over everyone else's. Did he suspect that Remy was barely hanging on by his fingernails? If things went wrong, could he count on Logan to put him down?

Ororo smiled at Remy's lame quip, but Logan glared murderously before holding a claw over one of the dark bands circling her good wrist. Three more underground levels below Betsy they had found Storm, locked in a tiny windowless cell, her body damaged but her mind thankfully her own. Remy was trying his best to take a deep breath. Now that they had Ororo, they could get back to Anna and Bobby and they could end this.

With barely a flick of Logan's blades, the bracelet clattered to the floor.

"It is good to see the pair of you," Ororo said and stood with Remy's help. "Next time, a little faster, please."

They fashioned a quick splint for her arm. While they were tying it tight, Psylocke groaned from where they had propped her body against the wall.

"Oh, God…I…hate this…place…" she mumbled and looked blearily at her rescuers.

"Something we can all agree on," Ororo regarded the British mutant carefully. "Are you all right, Elisabeth?"

Logan sniffed her warily, but helped Psylocke to her feet.

"I…think so. Just a little…fuzzy, like waking from a very vivid dream."

"Nightmare be more like it, chere."

Betsy snatched Logan's collar in a surprisingly iron grip and stared at the heavy lines on his face, her amazement and grief an open book. " _How?"_ She obviously hadn't been introduced to this Logan, and judging from her face, Remy wagered Elisabeth hadn't heard he even existed. She lightly touched the bright white of Logan's hair. "Am I still dreaming?"

The crash of lightning and thunder battered the small cell, and Ororo closed her eyes, focusing on the storm over their heads.

"I am afraid that I let this get the best of me," she confessed. "It may take me awhile to calm the tempest."

There were other sounds that joined the rainstorm, sounds of a distant firefight, and Remy anxiously herded Ororo towards the door. "You gon' have to do it on the run, Stormy. Anna and Bobby, sounds like they need us."

* * *

It was slower going than Remy would have liked, carrying two wounded X-Men over the rubble of the Genoshan capital in search of their teammates. They had sent a signal, Ororo unleashing a bolt of lightning into the shape of an 'X' to let Rogue and Iceman know they were coming, but had gotten no answer in return. They were still following the sounds that echoed across the battered landscape, but the ruins were like running in a maze. Logan's nose was useless, the rain had washed away most of the scents, and Betsy's telepathy couldn't find them thanks to the dampeners, and couldn't find Vargas or Erik either. The woman was barely functioning, but what she did catch was a faint glimmer of Warren before his mind had suddenly winked out of sight.

"S'okay, chere," Remy reassured her for the tenth time and helped her unsteady feet over a mangled pile of steel and glass. He was getting to be just as wobbly as she was, but was better at hiding it. There was no way he was breaking down in front of the others. "Could just mean they got that dampener on him, too."

She frowned and shook off Remy's hand. "That's not exactly comforting. You don't understand. There's nothing left of Warren in Archangel. I've been controlling his body with my telepathy for months, using him as a weapon. If he's free, if I can't stop him…" Betsy gasped and slipped on a patch of black ice, Remy barely catching her before she fell flat on her face. The rain had stopped, but ahead the landscape had become a frozen winter wonderland, the drop in temperature like standing in front of an open refrigerator on a summer day.

"Stormy," Remy called over Betsy's shoulder to where Logan and Ororo were carefully picking their way towards them. "Thought you turned up the thermostat?"

She shook her head. "This is not my doing." Ororo wasn't in much better shape, and Logan had convinced her to stay grounded until she could steady herself. In the air she would be a tempting target, and the last thing they needed was her taking another hit.

Logan stopped and cocked his head, sniffing at the frigid air. The man growled, bared his teeth and took off at a dead sprint through the snow.

"Logan!" Remy stood Psylocke on her feet. "God dammit! Come back here!"

Elisabeth pointed after Wolverine. "Go!" she yelled. "We're right behind you!"

Following his tracks, Remy rounded the corner of a burned out building in time to see Wolverine's body sailing through the air on a magnetic wave, all three hundred fifty pounds of him bulldozing through the wreckage. Straining his eyes skyward, Remy caught sight of Drake, the source of the now subzero temperatures, chasing circles in the air around the hypnotized Magneto. Bobby was holding his own, but just barely, and Remy suspected he would have to freeze them all to the bone before he would be able to bring that stubborn ass Lehnsherr down. Remy's insides did a backflip when he realized his wife was nowhere to be seen, and neither was Vargas.

Ororo and Betsy came up behind him, a bubble of tropical warmth surrounding Storm, and Remy waved to the sky.

"Can you get me up there?" he shouted.

"You mean get _us_ up there!" Psylocke locked eyes with him and Ororo nodded.

"Fastball special?"

Surrounding them with the icier air, Storm used the winds to suck them skyward. Before they reached their target, Remy unleashed a barrage of charged cards that peppered Erik along his back and legs, knocking his target slightly off balance, forcing him to drop his magnetic shield. Betsy followed Remy's cards with a flying kick to Magneto's kidneys. When the man flailed midair, Remy caught him around the neck and hung his full weight on him, hoping to drag Erik to the ground. Bobby sent an ice slide for Psylocke before she fell, and she looped back to the tussling men, adding her own weight to the pile.

"Dampener's in my jacket pocket!" Remy screamed in Betsy's ear. She gave him a withering glare before she pawed at his trenchcoat. Any other time, and he would have had a whole mouthful of dirty comments for her feeling up his pockets, but right then all he felt was relief when she pulled a dampener free and hooked it around Erik's wrist. When it was activated, the man roared in pain, and the trio dropped to the ground, too fast this time for Storm or Iceman to catch them.

Ororo, dragging a bloodied but healing Wolverine, rushed towards them. "Is he…?" she asked.

A helmetless Magneto moaned under Remy's knee.

"Give him a minute." Remy stood and brushed the snow from his jacket before he helped Betsy to her feet. The purple-haired beauty looked frantically from side to side.

"Where's Warren?"

Bobby came to stand beside her. "I don't know. Rogue took off after him!"

"Where?" Remy growled, but Bobby just shook his head.

"I don't know, I was a little busy. I'm sorry, but I lost them…"

Remy wanted to scream, but Bobby had clearly had his hands full taking on Magneto man-to-man, a feat few X-Men could have managed solo.

The reformed villain groaned again, improving much faster than Elisabeth had. "If Logan is quite recovered," Erik pushed himself to his knees, Betsy helping him to stand from there. "He should be able to track Anna and Warren. We must hurry, time is of the essence."

Turning to Magneto, Remy stood face to face with him. "You all better now, m'sieu?"

"Yes," Erik sneered. "Certainly better than _you_."

Cocking back a fist, Remy hit Erik squarely in the jaw, sending the man sprawling backwards onto the melting snow.

"Remy!" Ororo chastised, but Magneto wiped a trail of blood from under his nose.

"I…probably deserved that," Magneto inclined his head to Gambit.

"And more," Remy held out a hand to help Magneto to his feet. "But you right, we gotta find my wife."

"Let's move," Logan nodded to the sky and a strange glow building on the horizon. All Remy could think was that by the time they found Rogue, they could be too late.

* * *

The ruins of Hammer Bay flashed below her as she tore through the air after Vargas. What poor soul had he absorbed that let him fly so dang fast? And how did he still have all of his powers? Thanks to Forge's little gun backfiring, Rogue had lost the powers she had absorbed earlier from the other X-Men. She was gaining on Vargas, but only just, and had to zip a hard left to dodge a volley of plasma bombs he sent her way. Despite everything he was throwing at her, Vargas hadn't managed to teleport away. Maybe the gun had merely stripped away a few layers of everything he had absorbed, just like peeling a rotten onion. Didn't matter, she told herself. She needed to bring the son of a bitch down no matter what it cost her, and digging deep, Rogue punched forward with a bust of energy that lit up the sky in a fiery trail.

Catching up to him at last, she hammered his broad back with a fist that sent him spiraling, the force of the blow an ear shattering sonic boom. Before he could react, she dove and the two of them barrel rolled high above the landscape. A clawed hand found her throat and squeezed the oxygen from her already breathless lungs. She tried her absorption power again and felt him doing the same, the effort giving her nothing but that strange static electric buzz between the two of them, but just like in Tibet, they cancelled each other out. Remembering what she had learned from Simon's file, she switched tactics. She may have lost the others' powers, but she knew Wonderman was still there. Instead of trying to draw Vargas's energy in, she pushed out with the ions that infused every atom of her body.

Long ago, a lifetime it seemed, a young and cocky Rogue had fought against the Avengers. She had tried absorbing Wonderman's powers, but there was something about Simon Williams's unique structure that had made it impossible for her back then. Simon wasn't quite human, he had been functionally immortal and impervious to most forms of harm, never aging a day, but such things had come at a high price. At times, his powers had driven him mad, and Rogue had certainly had enough of that for one lifetime thanks to her own mutation. It had taken her years to figure out how to borrow his powers, though even now, her life dependent on those ionic abilities, she wished with all her heart she had never figured out how to take them. She felt nothing but a sad, sick guilt over what had happened between them, so much so that she hadn't even attempted to use his abilities to their full extent since claiming them for her own. Simon had a whole bag of tricks that she had never dipped into, but she hoped today they would give her the edge she needed. As she and Vargas fell, she pushed on those powers and the villain's face shifted from a ravenous hatred to fear as he felt the energy build between them. A blast of ions exploded outward from her hands with the force of a laser cannon, flesh and bone giving way to the power caged inside of her. The violent discharge propelled Vargas to the ground, sending a backlash of rubble skyward.

Rogue froze midair, staring at what were once her hands, but were now a bubbling mass of ions with glowing fingers. She dove for Vargas and caught the creature as he was picking himself up from the wreckage, firing on him again and sending him flying backwards. Before she could reach him, he sprang to his feet and hit her with a barrage of the stolen powers still at his command, Roberto's solar blasts, Tabitha's plasma bombs, laser beams she didn't recognize. She dodged most and took a couple hits that staggered her, but she kept coming. His eyes widened and he lunged for her, their fight resuming down and dirty and nasty, his thunderous slaps and fists connecting with her face, clawing at her neck and cheeks, her kicks crunching bones that knitted themselves back together, but the hole her ions had blown in his blue hide was still a gaping crater of singed flesh and skin. She turned and fired another shot. Vargas screamed and doubled over, covering a smoking and blackened hole in his abdomen.

In the distance, she could hear the shouts of her coming teammates, but she was the one who had to finish this, finish him. It had to be her, she laughed to herself, Irene had said so.

"You…cannot win…" Vargas hissed and his body twitched with a boiling stew of barely contained mutant energy. "You are…weak!"

"Wanna bet, sugar?" She closed her eyes and let go inside, of her humanity, of her body, of the fear she had tied around what Simon had given her, and became a being of pure ionic energy. She felt her flesh and bone melting, same as the creature, Vargas, who screamed and burned at her feet.

With ears that were no longer human, she heard her husband scream her name.

* * *

Between the nausea and the burn of popped stitches, Remy couldn't run fast enough. Scrambling over wreckage towards the sounds of a firefight, panic rising with every step, he vaulted over the last ridge and froze in his tracks. The light, that same angry red light he and Raven had seen in Tibet when the mountain blew its top, had gotten brighter the closer they moved, and poured from what could only be Rogue's body. The light was too intense to look directly at, but when he glanced at her sideways he could make out the faint outline of Rogue's body floating above the ground.

 _"Anna!"_ Remy screamed and slid down the slope towards his wife. The light, her ionic energy, was focused on Vargas. The monster, crouched in front of her and trying to shield his body with outstretched arms, stood between the X-Men and Rogue.

The cool voice of Death whispered in Remy's ears at the sight of his bastardized former master, but Remy used the pain and anger to focus. He could do this, he had beaten back the monster before for love. Biting his lip until he tasted blood, Remy staggered forward. Love would always win.

The light and heat ratcheted up a notch, the sound coming from Rogue absurdly like a teakettle about to burst, and then she howled, the sound ripping Remy into two pieces inside. Remy rushed forward, the others behind him, Stormy begging him to stay back. Anna was losing control, her body dissolving in an angry red cloud of ions. Logan was keeping pace with him, and without thinking, Remy swam through the ion fog and threw his body at the creature, wrapping his legs around Vargas's waist from behind. Vargas, still battling Rogue's onslaught, thrashed to pitch the unwanted intruder from his backside. Locking his ankles and arms around the villain, Remy held on with all his might and used the villain as a shield to block the worst of Rogue's attack.

Vargas couldn't control the power he had stolen from Anna, but hardly any mind reader worth their salt could control the man called Remy LeBeau. When Rogue had absorbed Remy in the past, he hadn't remembered keeping any shred of autonomous thought or action, but then he had never really tried to fight her, happy to be with her any way he could, even if it had only been in her mind. If he could keep it together…force an absorption…he didn't have much time, his arms and legs were starting to sting…starting to change…

Vargamort, Bobby had called Vargas, but that wasn't quite right, was it? If Apocalypse, dead and drained and hiding, regaining his strength, was He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, that meant Vargas was just sad sack Professor Quirrell, in the wrong forest at the wrong time. Well, Remy thought, call me The Boy Who Lived. Fighting the slow drizzle of Death sliding over his skin, ignoring the igniting of his trenchcoat sleeves, Remy unlocked the psychic dampener on his wrist and pressed his bare, slowly blackening palm against Vargas's cheek. There was the instant electric jolt of Rogue's stolen powers, but he fought to keep control of his consciousness, even as he felt it ripped out of his body.

The next thing he knew, the sounds of battle were gone, replaced by an eerily quiet darkness, so thick his eyes couldn't pierce it. Where was he? He staggered to his feet, and the shadows around him moved, shifted, the whispers becoming voices he couldn't understand. Vargas had absorbed his mind, that much Remy had expected, but he still felt like himself. What was happening outside in the real world? Was Anna okay? Had Vargas stopped absorbing him as soon as he blacked out? Remy could only hope his body had fallen to the ground, and that the flesh-to-flesh contact had been broken the second he was knocked out, but it didn't matter. If it was his life for the others, so be it. His eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness that surrounded him, and he started to make out individual figures moving through the shadowy mass.

"Who there?" he demanded and charged a card to light the space, Remy and the magenta flare of his power the only colors visible. "Show yourself!"

The inky cloud parted, and several of the shadows took on familiar shapes as they stepped forward.

"Gambit?" James Proudstar towered over the rest. "He got you, too?"

His heart, or what remained of it inside the pits of Vargas, thumped in Remy's chest. Behind James came Tabby, Roberto, and Monet, black and white phantoms of their former selves. Behind them in the darkness were countless others, the faces of those whose lives Vargas had destroyed in his mad quest for power.

"Not exactly," Remy grimaced. "We don't have a whole lot of time. We gotta…"

A ferocious tremor shot through the world around them. Remy and the phantoms lurched, barely keeping their balance, and Remy lost hold of the card in his hand. It fell to what passed for the ground and exploded, the blast bringing another quake, this time accompanied by a roar of pain that drowned out the panicky voices of the gathered mutants.

"What the hell was that?" Remy sputtered.

Roberto was helping Tabitha to her feet and pointed his chin to where Remy's card had blown up. "The tremors have been happening for a few minutes, but that's the first time we've heard him scream like that."

 _Him._ From the look in Roberto's eyes, Remy knew they realized where they were, and what had happened to them. There were no time for explanations, and Xavier's former students didn't need them. Gambit's cards had hurt Vargas. From the depths of the villain's subconscious, it seemed they could inflict a hell of a lot of pain.

Pulling a fresh deck from the pockets of his trenchcoat, Remy charged the cards as he fanned them. "Make it count, mes amis!" He threw the cards into the blackness over their heads, and the resulting explosion brought another roar of pain. The surrounding phantoms, led by Remy and the kids, unleashed their mutant powers, more variety than Remy had ever seen gathered together. The world around them shuddered, a strange cracking, tearing noise joining Vargas's shrieks.

He raised another brace of cards to throw, but his arm, until then more solid here than anyone else's, flickered, becoming transparent. He was either dying, or his time here had run out, and his eyes found Warpath.

"We got this!" James bellowed and continued hammering his fists into the walls of their mental cage. "Tell Storm we…!"

The darkness disappeared, replaced in the next blink by an angry crimson that burned his retinas. Back in his own body, Remy came to in time for a real-world explosion, and the accompanying ionic shockwave that rolled over them could only have come from his wife. He thrashed frantically. _Rogue_! _Anna!_ Where was she? A body, Vargas, smothered him, but protected him from the brunt of the blast. There was tremendous heat, screams of panic, the smell of burning flesh and hair, and Remy fought to get free even as the monster inside him still fought for its own freedom.

Over Vargas's motionless shoulder, he couldn't see his wife, but could see the smoking crater apparently left in her wake. Had she…detonated? Blasted Vargas apart from the outside while Remy and the kids tore him to shreds from the inside? Mon dieu… _No_ …it felt like his heart had been ripped from his chest. Guts twisting and turning, the sweat poured down his back in rivulets. It couldn't end like this, not after everything they had been through! The sound of the blast he hadn't been awake to hear had left his ears ringing, but he could hear the cold peals of laughter in his mind as clear as a bell.

It would be so easy to give in now, wouldn't it? The monster whispered again, it would be so easy to let it happen, to kill them all. Why should he fight it? _Death._ Or perhaps, suicide by Wolverine? None of it mattered now anyway. If she was gone he had nothing left to live for. Merde, he screamed inside, turning his head to vomit in the rubble, _Anna!_

"Don't you fucking do this!" Wolverine snarled in his still buzzing ear and hauled Vargas's smoking carcass from on top of his body. "Fight it! Fight him!"

The others, still alive but covered in dirt and debris, were picking themselves up on the ridge at the edge of the crater, too far away to stop what was happening. Remy felt the wind rising and the gentle drops of rain beginning to fall as Ororo worked to control the resulting flames. Logan pinned Remy to the ground with his claws through the fabric of his coat.

"Listen to me, Gambit," Logan hissed. "It never goes away. _Ever_. The guilt, the shame…every day when I close my eyes I see them, I _smell_ them. What I did, there ain't no comin' back! I couldn't stop it, but _you_ can! Don't let him win!"

Remy roared and squeezed his fingers around one of the adamantium blades, the pain as always enough to snap him back to reality. Logan was right, this _wasn't_ ever going to stop. The sweat rolling down his back becoming an icy torrent. Death wasn't going away, there was no miracle cure. There was no denying it anymore, what Apocalypse had done to him had become as integrated to his body as his aorta. Could he fight this, fight for control, every second of every day? He would do it, he would try, for _her_ , but if Anna was gone…

The red glow of Anna's powers still bathed Logan's wrinkled face and caught Remy's attention. Over Wolverine's shoulder, a thick frothy cloud still swirled around the massive basin Rogue had blown in the surface of the island. While he watched, the mist coalesced, seemingly netted in an invisible force field. The cloud rolled against the force field's borders, and Remy gasped when Anna's features became visible in the vapor before melting away again.

"What the flamin'?" Logan whirled with his claws extended and Remy's eyes swept the area. On the ridge, Stormy and Bobby were working to cool off the ground, Betsy giving them a telekinetic assist, but Erik stood, his hands extended towards the fog.

"I have her…for the moment." Pain rippled across the Master of Magnetism's face. "Whatever your…exit strategy…I suggest you enact it sooner rather than…later."

The sound of laughter reached Remy's ears and his blood ran cold. Beside them lay what was left of Vargas, the skin burned from his still smoldering body, and Logan kicked the man, rolling him onto his back. Rogue's blast had charbroiled him, and Vargas stared at them from lidless eyes. Along the creature's jaw and hands the flesh had scorched all the way to the bone. The smell turned Remy's stomach, but the sight of him for the moment didn't tug at his own monster from the depths where he had shoved him.

"La Victoria," Vargas breathed.

Remy's Spanish was a little rusty, but that one he understood. _Victory._ He had no idea how the creature was still alive, but Rogue had been right. It wouldn't be over until Vargas was dead. Bending down, Remy picked up a stray hunk of debris and let his mutant power flow through it. The kinetic charge he lit was magenta, but the edges still crackled black.

"Yes…" Horrific eyes, brown again instead of yellow, followed his movements. "Only the strong… _survive_ …" Those garish, fleshless lips formed a smile that was all teeth and Remy shuddered, but raised the weapon high over his head.

"No!" Logan caught his arms on the way down and Remy whirled on him.

" _You_ stoppin' me?" Remy spit. "You know this has to end!"

Logan's eyes met his, the look in them softening. Warm, sincere, the man before him finally a friend long lost, but still remembered. "Damn straight, Cajun, but you don't need this bastard's blood on your hands. Psycho killer. Executioner. You know it's what I do best." He let go of Remy's arms and spun. In one motion, razor sharp claws sliced Vargas's head clean from his shoulders. Remy pulled the energy of his charge back into himself, unable to believe what he had just witnessed.

Overhead, the sudden whine of a Quinjet engine, and a last minute rescue courtesy of Captain America parted the thick clouds that had settled over the island. Remy shook so hard with relief he nearly dropped to his knees. It was over. Vargas was really, truly dead, but at what price? His thoughts turned to Anna. Magneto had her, but what was she? The faster they got her back to Tony Stark and the big brains in New York, the better. But where did that leave him and Logan? No matter what, Anna was supposed to come out of this alive. Had they failed her? Had this all been for nothing? Logan stood next to him, and the pair watched the Quinjet drop through the haze as the rain began to fall in earnest.

" _Your_ girl?" Logan said quietly. "She's a survivor." Remy took a determined step forward, but Logan's heavy hand stopped him. "Be her hero, Gumbo. Lord knows I never could."


	23. Chapter 23

All characters owned by Marvel Comics

Author's notes: Thanks so much everybody for sticking with me on this one! Hopefully you enjoyed the ride!

* * *

 **Chapter Twenty-Three**

 **Epilogue**

"When can I take my wife home?"

"Has anybody told you how annoying you are?"

Tony Stark - genius, billionaire playboy, philanthropist- and the Avenger known as Iron Man, brushed past Remy's shoulder and tapped the flat screen attached to the front of a large, cylindrical tank. Behind the thick glass, Rogue floated freely while watching Tony work.

Remy spread his fingers on the outside of the tank, the skin on the back of his hand decorated with a crisscross of still healing wounds. Rogue smiled at him and placed her fingers on the inside to line up with his. It was how they touched these last few weeks, but Remy was just grateful to be able to see her pretty face, and not the ionic cloud she had been reduced to after their fight with Vargas. When the monster had finally met his demise, his body weakened under the onslaught of energy she had unleashed before Remy, the kids, and Logan had finished him off, Rogue had lost her corporeal form, becoming a creature composed entirely of that same energy.

Remy had nearly lost her, but thanks to the Avengers and some quick thinking by Erik of all people, they had held Rogue's atoms together so she hadn't ended up dispersing into the atmosphere as Simon Williams once had. They had rushed her to Stark, and Tony had been working tirelessly to help Rogue rebuild herself, holding her in a containment unit once designed to aid Wonderman. The technology was realigning her molecules and helping to reform her body, but it had been a painfully slow process.

It had taken weeks, but Rogue was getting steadily stronger and less see through every day. Though there was part of Remy that wished at times she hadn't been quite so visible. Her costume had been destroyed along with her physical body. She couldn't magically conjure up clothes and they couldn't open the containment unit to give her any. Even though Tony had rigged a privacy screen of sorts to protect her modesty, Remy was sure Iron Man had snuck a peek. If Tony had, it was his funeral when Rogue got out of that tank...

"You said today was the day, m'sieu," Remy turned to where Stark was still fiddling with the computers, and Rogue tapped the glass to get Tony's attention.

"And I'm never wrong. Well, hardly ever wrong." Stark stood and grinned a mouthful of expensively fake pearly whites. "Today, LeBeau, I'm right, and I'm not just saying that because the sooner Rogue leaves, the sooner you're out of my hair and out of my lab."

Remy's face split into a grin. "So, today?"

"Today. As in, right now, if you're ready."

A loud whoop and a chorus of cheers erupted from behind them, and Remy looked over his shoulder to the windows lining the hallway outside the lab. Bobby, Jean, and Fence were all plastered to the glass and grinning like idiots, and Steve Rogers stood with them, his smile decidedly less stupid. Rogue waved, her face beaming. They had all wanted to be in the room, but there was still the possibility of Rogue's powers flaring out of control. Tony was there because he claimed he had to be, and Remy was there because there was no force in the world that could keep him away, but the rest of their friends stood protected behind reinforced glass.

Stark finished his preparations and Remy found a robe for Anna. It had been a _long_ few weeks, some of the longest of Remy's life. The world had kept turning with crisis after crisis, and the Avengers and the X-Men had continued to confront them like they always had, but Remy had bowed out of the superhero game. He was still recovering, physically as well as mentally, and had ate, slept, and breathed in Stark's lab.

Magik had opened the gates to X-Haven, allowing Forge to consult with Stark on Rogue's condition while their team continued their mission of contacting stray mutants. The X-Men's job had been made slightly easier thanks to the research of the A.I.M. scientists on Avengers' Island. Roberto's people had discovered that the Terrigen Mists could be corralled by electromagnetic energy. Tony had been able to synthesize an inoculation that immunized mutants to the worst effects of the mists, and much to the distress of the Inhumans, Magneto had taken it upon himself to round up the roving clouds that still terrorized mutants around the world. Hero or savior? It depended on who you asked these days, but Erik Lehnsherr had always enjoyed toeing that line.

Logan was gone, he had only stuck around long enough to say goodbye to Anna. Remy had a feeling the old man felt his debt repaid somehow, that by saving this Rogue he had somehow righted a wrong. Though Remy hadn't been in the room for the pair's final goodbye, his jealousy and anger with Logan had dissipated. He knew how hard it was to lose Anna, and how tempting it would be if you had a chance to regain a love you had lost. Remy wished his old friend the best he could in a world that was not his own.

Jean and Bobby had been helping out the Avengers, allowing them to stay close but keeping them busy. Jean had been using her telepathy to aid in the recovery of Roberto, Tabitha, and James, but Monet was another, sadder story. Her body had not survived the initial attack in Genosha, and the X-Men mourned the loss of another teammate and friend. The X-Force trio, however, had regained consciousness shortly after Vargas had been killed. Thanks to Jean's hard work they were slowly piecing together their memories, but Remy didn't know if they would ever fully recover. Carol Danvers never had after she and Rogue had fought all those years ago, and he could only assume Vargas's version of Anna's powers worked the same.

Betsy was still searching for Warren. They had looked for Archangel, teams of Avengers even returning to Genosha and scouring the island, but there had been no sign of him. Rogue had managed to get the psychic dampener on Warren's wrist, so Remy had hated to point out that Psylocke's telepathy would be useless in finding Archangel, but he knew from experience that he wouldn't quit if it was his love in danger.

A recovered Mystique had stayed in X-Haven, and was helping Ororo and company make preparations to return to the school to the real world. Raven had been in constant contact with her daughter, but Anna had been squeamish about having her mother, who was still not fully recovered from her injuries, anywhere near her dangerous powers.

"All right," Stark barked. "I think we're ready here."

Remy draped the robe on a stool perched near the containment unit, and he and Tony stepped behind a heavily shielded partition.

"You want to do the honors?" Tony showed Remy how to disengage the containment unit and, saying a silent prayer, Remy pressed the button. There was a hiss and a flash of light that dropped the men to their knees.

"Anna?" Remy called out, unable to see, his world a snow-blind white. Where was she? Was she OK? Had it worked?

"I'm here, sugar."

The sound of her voice bought him to his feet and he scrambled around the partition, meaning to wrap his arms around her, but she stepped back hastily. He slowly approached his wife, but her wide eyes resembled a skittish doe in the forest.

"Chere?" he held a hand out to her.

She wrapped the robe around herself and swallowed. "I'm okay, it's just so…" she held trembling fingers out for his and he grasped her hand, wonderfully warm and solid and real, and he carefully drew her against his chest and held her there, unashamed at his own tears that soaked her shoulder.

"I can't keep them out forever, but I'll get you a couple moments alone," Tony said and exited the lab, but Remy barely noticed, his attention focused almost solely on the woman in his arms.

"Did it work?" she whispered, and Remy felt a brief flare of the anger he thought he had laid to rest weeks ago. Rogue had nearly died to destroy Vargas, a monstrously unfair trade that Remy knew she would make again and again to save her friends. She had made the choice without him, again, but he had kept his secrets from her as well. Death, still buried deep inside, but quiet for the time being. Round and round, the same old hurts. They still had so far to go.

He held her out slightly and cupped her face in his hands. "Oui. He's gone. It's over." He wanted to scream at her for almost dying, too, but he was so relieved to have her whole and standing in front of him that he realized he didn't give a goddamn what she had done, only that she had survived.

"How do you feel?" The cheeks he stroked with his thumbs were wet with tears, but the eyes shedding them had changed colors, her usual emerald green variegated with startling flecks of crimson. She had changed, they both had, like teacups that had shattered and been glued back together.

"Weird, but okay, I think." Those eyes held his and the questions neither of them wanted to voice were there, written all over her face. She was alive, but what was she? Was she still Anna? Was she still... _human_? Wonderman had been anything but, and Stark's scans had been inconclusive.

"Remy, it was the only way…"

He swallowed her apology in a slow, deep kiss. "I know." He leaned his forehead down to rest against her. There was so much more to talk about, his work since the battle to try and manage the monster that would forever live inside him, but it could wait. Whatever happened, they would face it together.

"I love you," she said softly.

"Know that, too."

He felt her eyebrows knit together in a frown and she tried to playfully shove him away, but he chuckled and brought her back for another kiss. "Forever, Mrs. LeBeau. I won't settle for anything less."

The doors to the lab crashed open and they were enveloped by friends, family, and teammates, but they kept their hands twined together, unwilling to let go. A love worth dying for? Remy allowed himself a small smile. What more could an old thief ask for?

 **The End**


End file.
